LLLLDL.
Not the result of a sticky keyboard in the marketing department of a famous German supermarket or a village in North Wales, but Nottingham Forest’s sequence of results at the start of their 14th consecutive season in the Championship.
Little cause for optimism then amongst the 23,830 hardy souls who turned out midweek for a home match against Middlesbrough on the 15th of September, other than amongst the travelling Boro support, one would imagine, whose team had had a pretty middling start.
What followed was a low, even for a club that had spent three seasons in the 3rd tier and whose supporters had endured such delights as a 5-0 defeat away to Oldham Athletic in the driving sleet and remarkable, soul-destroying capitulations in important matches. Think 2019 and losing 4-1 at home to 15th placed Stoke, when a point (or even a narrow defeat) would have guaranteed a play-off spot. Then building magnificently from that to avoiding relegation on goal difference the very next season.
Back to September 15th. “You’re nothing special, we lose every week” rang around the ground as the joyous visitors celebrated a comfortable 2-0 victory, ably assisted by a nightmare moment for keeper Evan Horvath and another ten players incapable of stringing two passes together. Actually, a bit unfair that. There was the occasional moment of total football when a player in the Garibaldi red managed to find a team mate, to rapturous applause and sarky “Ole’s”. “How shit are you, it’s only two nil,” echoed around the rapidly emptying old ground as the comedy of errors continued, to be followed by the unpleasant spectacle of fans chanting “sacked in the morning” at our own boss, Chris Hughton. Another L added to that string. Fuckin’ L.
Chris Hughton. A nice enough guy, perhaps. Norwich supporters has warned us though and they were right. The manager cut an increasingly broken figure, pacing the touchline, appearing disconnected from the players. The football was dire. Uber-cautious, often seeming to set out to defend one-nil defeats. A back four (always a back four) that lacked the confidence to ever pass the ball forwards and a toothless looking attack. Brennan Johnson looked a possible chink of light in an otherwise dismal landscape.
And sacked in the morning he was. The latest in a succession that just couldn’t put right whatever was so horribly wrong with the club. There were even calls for the return of one William Macintosh Davis, our very own Kim il Sung, Great Leader, Eternal President, Grand Marshal and all-round nut-job, for a third crack at it. Desperate times. Relationships between club and fans were non-existent, the contempt felt mutual. Media black-outs, terrible communications, ground falling apart, terrible service off the pitch.
1 point from 7 matches. The worst start in 108 years. A twelve match run without a win that stretched back into the previous season. Ex-red and Dad to Brennan, David Johnson, a very reasonable and pleasant man, was reduced to tweeting, “Just so angry and disappointed how this club is ran. It’s embarrassing (the whole board should of gone) they are a disgrace. Last time I anything bad about the club. Gainnis called me. I’ll wait for his call I guess, as I was right the first time.” The reference here was to Ioannis Vrentzos, former CEO, ousted in favour of Dane Murphy, but still holding a long of sway in the kingdom of owner Evangelos Marinakis.
Marinakis had come in the wake of the disastrous reign of Fawaz al Hasawi, Kuwaiti businessman, revolving door manager policy (9 in 5 years!), making us a club known for not paying its debts, for not paying its staff, league position literally worsening every single season, and all of that stuff. Hanging on. Just about. Grimly.
Marinakis had a five year plan, from his arrival in 2017. Not uncontroversial himself - allegations of corruption and involvement in drug deals exist, though he has always been cleared - and owner of Olympiacos; at times we seemed destined just to become their nursery club and a dumping ground for rubbish players they were stuck with.
So, that Boro match came 4 and a bit years into the 5 year plan. As 5 year plans go, it was looking right up there with Stalin’s first one, though admittedly without the millions of casualties. Brutal as that was, it set the USSR on the route to becoming a major international superpower - nothing of sort on Trentside. We just remained stubbornly shite.
The match immediately after Boro was a tricky looking away fixture at Huddersfield, of whom much more later, of course. Under the guidance of coach Steven Reid, the winless run came to an end courtesy of a goal from Lewis Grabban and an own goal. This was the beginning of a beautiful love-in with the hitherto much maligned ‘3am-workgang-on-the-M42’ hi-viz away kit. The kit had magic powers. Or maybe it was more to do with switching to 3-4-3 and letting players play a bit. Who knows? Few were getting excited, beyond a flickering hope that relegation might not be the foregone conclusion it had looked. It was nice to remember what winning felt like though. Remember, we’d not experienced that since April.
New manager Steve Cooper came in to mixed reviews and expectations. The word out of Swansea was that the football would be dull, though a record of two consecutive play-offs might have been seen as promising. Conversely, a record of two consecutive play-off defeats might not. A decent track record at Liverpool’s academy and a spell with England u-17s that was up and down, although the up did happen to include a World Cup win. Cooper’s stated philosophy was to “facilitate” players’ learning and improvement and not to micro-manage them.
The new era got of to a good start. A one-one draw at home to Millwall was solid enough and then followed consecutive wins. Unheard of! Four consecutive wins: Barnsley, Birmingham, Blackpool, Bristol City. B*witched. Forest looked confident, resilient and were starting to feel very loveable. Players and fans began to form bonds that had been rare since the days of Stuart Pearce.
The wheels fell of somewhat at home to Fulham, who gave a bit of a masterclass in finishing, 3 second half goals in 9 minutes to add to an unfortunate Djed Spence own goal, and headed home with a 4-0 win that probably flattered them.
That own goal aside, Djed Spence electrified us. His presence seemed to revitalise Brennan Johnson and at times the pair looked unplayable. Loanee Keinan Davis bullied defences in the kind of way we were used to being bullied ourselves. Previously unrated by many (yours truly included), players like Ryan Yates and Jack Colback started to perform heroics, most notably both suddenly able to get the ball moving forwards.
Three more consecutive wins, a thrilling FA Cup victory over ‘The’ Arsenal, a Derby win and a televised destruction of Leicester, considerably more effective and impressive than some of their Stone Islanded boneheads’ attempts to ‘take’ family diners in the city centre. Still, no one was really talking about promotion, but relegation began to look unlikely.
Huddersfield in the Cup brought a satisfying win against a side that really, really fancied their chances and whose fanbase got weirdly angsty about a local kebab shop letting off fireworks afterwards. They still are. Eva’s Grill, we salute you!
More wins, growing confidence, growing dreams. We couldn’t could we?
The manager continued to build relationships with fans, who revelled in his apparent joy and Klopp-esque fist pumps after each and every win. He came across (and still does) as a sensible, modern, decent guy, who ‘gets it’. A big bar in town hung a massive celebratory banner of him outside. Great likeness and work of art it may not have been, but safe to say there had never been one for David Platt or Gary Megson.
Next up, Liverpool in front of a baying City Ground, an atmosphere that Jurgen Klopp compared to a big European night at Anfield. Many of us had feared that one for the potential for the less enlightened elements of our support to embarrass us over either or both of Hillsborough or poverty-shaming. The club set a positive tone by leaving 97 empty seats, some fan groups and social media presences reached out in a friendly way, making connections and trying to educate the ignorant minority and things went OK, though not perfectly. Still some work to do there and some of us are still plugging away at that.
A fantastic 4-1 win at fellow play-off hopefuls Blackpool, featuring an imperious, swaggering performance from Brennan Johnson and the first incarnation of his Robin Hood celebration, was followed by (now) routine, smooth wins against Cov and Birmingham. Play-off hopes turned to automatic dreams. Automatic dreams then dashed by a grim, ugly affair at bullying Luton, a 1-0 defeat in which Djed Spence had a perfectly good goal disallowed. This was more Forest. It’s the hope that kills you.
The response was fantastic and rekindled those dreams of automatic. A 4-0 win over West Brom, obvious highlight being Ginger Pirlo Jack Colback’s astonishing wonder goal from the second row of seats in the Clough Stand, possibly with a Balti pie in his hand. The legend grows. Of course he meant it! A win at Peterborough, an unbelievable win away at to-be-champs Fulham and it was back on. Swansea were seen off 5-1 and even the non believers began to believe. In scenes mocked as tinpot by fans of some truly tinpot clubs, thousands lined the streets to cheer the team off for the crucial match at Bournemouth, a match which the hosts had had previously called off at short-notice on safety grounds during Storm Eunice, the ‘major’ ground damage transpiring to be a badly applied club badge peeling off a wall. Coincidentally, the Cherries had 7 injuries, some to key players. They also refused to play the next day, when the storm had subsided and Forest and many supporters were still on the South Coast. Hmmm… Whatever, Bournemouth scraped a 1-0 win against a sub-par Forest, with some assistance from a genuine shocker of a decision to not award Forest a first half penalty. Goodbye automatic, hello playoffs.
What could go wrong? With our reputation? It would be little exaggeration to describe Forest’s previous three play-off campaigns as catastrophic. Let’s have a look…
We dropped out of the Premier League for the third time in 1999 and the astute reader will realise we’ve never bounced back. We endured two years of chronically expensive failure with David Platt before the much loved and respected Paul Hart took us to the playoffs in 2003. The opponents, the less friendly of the Sheffield clubs. We have problems with the Blades, who doggedly stick to the scabs narrative and have a large elements who tend to (still) look for the chance to attack men, women and children out the back of the away end. An unremarkable 1-1 draw in the home leg gave way to a night of carnage at Bramall Lane. To cut a long story short, Forest went from cruising at 2-0 up (goal courtesy of Brennan’s Dad, David), to falling behind for the first time in the 112th minute. Add in (another to add to the, ahem, ‘winner’ in the the ‘91 FA Cup final) own goal from mega-legend Des Walker for good measure and there you have it.
Fast forward four years. Forest are in the 3rd tier, the first ever European Champions to be relegated to the third level of their domestic league. Special. This was the second attempt to get out. The opponents were Yeovil. Respect where due, but we’re talking twice European champions against a club that was playing non-league football until 2003. None of which is relevant, of course! A trip to the new Wembley seemed guaranteed after a 2-0 win in the away leg. The home leg is still, for many, the most astonishing collapse ever seen. With the score still 3-1 in Forest’s favour at 81 minutes, Yeovil pulled it back to force extra-time, which Forest went into with ten men following sub David Prutton’s sending off for a challenge best described as ‘lunatic’. Yeovil scored, we equalised. An injury to Alan Wright left us with 9 men and Aaron Davies scored to make it 5-2 on the night, 5-4 on aggregate.
Fast forward again, this time to 2010. Billy Davies had assembled a good-to-watch young team and confidence going into the Championship playoffs was high. Ish. Remember, this is Forest. Anything was possible. We’d finished a strong third, though well behind champions Newcastle and West Brom. Inevitably, we took the lead away at Blackpool, but finished 2-1 down. In the home leg, Robert Earnshaw scored early to level the tie. DJ Campbell put Blackpool ahead. Earnshaw equalised again. Cue the by now traditional surrender: 3 goals conceded in 7 minutes, a late consolation goal and a 6-4 aggregate defeat.
So, the mood going into the 2022 playoffs was mixed. From complete resignation to another catastrophe to sure-fire confidence that lightening isn’t meant to strike even twice, let alone 4 times…
Forest performed brilliantly at Bramall Lane. A 2-1 win, from a 2-0 lead, seemed scant reward for a thrilling, dominant performance. In what was now becoming a familiar pattern, Forest took the lead in the home leg through a sliding Brennan Johnson arrow, completing a sweeping move. More dominance, missed chances, half-time, cue the collapse. All the good things went. United played with real energy and totally ran the second half. Forest were hanging on. Goals from Gibbs-White and then in the 75th minute John Fleck levelled the tie. This was only going one way. We’d been there before. Thrice. Holding on for extra-time looked unlikely but was achieved. Just. Extra-time was more even, but still Forest needed a wonder-save from talismanic (and erratic) Congolese ‘keeper Brice Samba, the undisputed King of Shithousery, to keep us in it. Penalties then. Everyone knows how this one ends. Three saves from Samba, whose water bottle became an item of almost religious significance, labelled as it was with his notes for a penalty shootout. Carnage on the pitch, sadly spoiled by the idiotic assault on Billy Sharp, a man we have an enormous amount of respect for. More upbeat, the on-pitch celebrations of Djed Spence’s mum, a lady who knows how to celebrate!*
*Literally, as I write, Djed has signed for Spurs, thus giving up on ever winning a trophy again, aside perhaps from an FA Cup in a year that ends with one. 2031 then. ;-) Good luck to him. Never our player, he gave 100%, resurrected a dying career by his own efforts and engaged with fans. Hopefully, we can sort a deal to keep his Mum!
So, to Wembley. Incredibly, as one of the last league clubs to make their debut at the new Wembley - for list fans, the others being Accrington Stanley, Blackburn, Colchester, Crawley, Ipswich, Oldham and Port Vale (who got there the very day before us, beating our friends, genuinely, from just up the road at Mansfield).
The sense of expectation, tinged with dread, overwhelmed the city, or at least the red majority - County had their minds on other things, their own playoff hopes. Tickets were inevitably like gold-dust, an extra allocation taking the red faction at Wembley to 39,000 and a fair few sat in neutral or Huddersfield territory making it more like 40,000+. The transport system imploded. Thousands of fans queuing from 6am at Nottingham station were directed to get a cab to distant towns, such as Grantham approximately 25 miles due East. “Far have we travelled, much have we seen” the giant banner read. There will be few, if any, sets of supporters who have witnessed such a range of highs and lows. I include our long suffering Magpie neighbours here - it’s a close run thing though. Red and white, black and white, we’ve been a football city on our knees all-round. Munich, Madrid, Wembley, The Nou Camp, Woking away in the LDV Vans Trophy (lost, by the way)
So, that the final was the proverbial damp-squib matters not. We huffed and puffed and generally held Huddersfield. We got two lucky breaks with refereeing decisions to the point that fans now make pilgrimages to ref Jon Moss’s Vinyl Whistle record shop in Headingley, Leeds. We’re (for now) big fans of VAR. We won courtesy of an own goal. The explosion of joy at the end of that was a volcano of emotion, largely relief, that had been building up pressure, ready to erupt, over two decades. Seasoned observers and the national media described it as the single most electric, loud moment Wembley had seen. It’s no surprise. Even to the likes of me and my own group of mates, mostly, present at two European Cup finals and countless glorious matches, this was a new high. The journey had made it so. It was to be celebrated and savoured. Freed From Desire, the Wembley DJ played. 40,000, freed from desire, raved. Plenty of us didn’t make it home for days. Maybe some are still there, like the Scotland fans you hear of never made it back from Argentina in 78.
In the aftermath, we celebrated in the real world and on-line. Trolls mocked and pointed out that we might break Derby’s wondrous record-low points tally. They warned us of ticketing problems, slavery to Sky TV, prices, VAR and the likelihood of being crap. All but the last of those look a given, though the club were good enough to renew season tickets to holders at a Championship price. Away ticket ‘membership’ has been a fiasco. Personally, I suspect I’ll not get a ticket for any this year and my record over recent seasons means I can’t complain. others can though. Anfield will be important and I might be calling in a few favours from some of the lovely Liverpool followers I seem to have amassed! ;-)
That last one, being crap, maybe now isn’t the given we’d assumed. There’s a plan and a manager whose record suggests the ability to create coherent teams quickly. Our ‘proper’ arrival in the Premier League confirmed by doing the very Premier league thing of splashing out (for us) a massive amount of money on a player no one beyond a few FIFA players has ever heard of (Taiwo Awoniyi from Union Berlin by way of Liverpool, since you ask). Add to that Neco Williams, Moussa Niakhate, Omar Richards, Dean Henderson (on loan) and, since yesterday at the time of writing, Huddersfield (them again!) pair Harry Toffolo and Lewis O’Brien. We might be OK. We might not. Whatever, we’re there and you have to put some trust in the system.
The departure of some of last season’s heroes, Samba in particular, is sad, but that’s football. Loanee Jimmy Garner from Man Utd will be missed, as will Kienan Davis. Both would seem good acquisitions if deals could be made. Garner can’t be borrowed again as you can’t loan two players from the same Premier League club (Henderson being the other Man Utd one).
So what are we as a club? What will we bring to the Premier League? What can a visitor expect? There have been some nice greetings, plenty of supporters of other clubs glad to see a ‘proper’ club, whatever that is, back in the top flight. Some have kindly, perhaps overly so, described us as “massive”. Well, we certainly have a history and apparently are the tenth most winningest English club in terms of trophies. Nottingham is a football city and we’ve stuck in good numbers with a club that has been heart-wrenchingly crap and has treated us like crap in return for decades. Cynics can point to the odd 13,000 gate and some definite dips, but by and large we’ve seen it through. Against all odds. Of course, getting tickets the coming season is next to impossible for all bar existing season ticket holders, with no new season tickets on sale. Away tickets, difficult in the Championship, are going to be harder still to get hold of. A revised membership scheme has drawn fierce criticism and plenty of people who have been away all over the shop throughout the lean years will undoubtedly miss out.
The recently famous atmosphere should continue to be very ‘real’, despite the forced migration of a significant number of flag-bearers and fan organisers from the Lower Bridgford, to meet Premier League away allocations. Hopefully, this will not impact too badly on the Forza Garibaldi group, responsible for some spectacular ‘tifos’ for the last few years.
The once raucous Trent End tends to be quiet these days, the noise coming from the Lower Bridgford and ‘A” block. The former is home to the Forza Garibaldi fan group mentioned above. The ‘A’ Block in the old Main Stand (now the Peter Taylor Stand) will continue to provide a hint of old-Skool, unreconstructed fandom, mostly staying on the right side of funny and passionate. The Brian Clough Stand has always been famously quiet, but unexpectedly sprang from under their rugs and into life last season - watch this space.
The whole place looks a bit jaded at times and reflects where we’ve been. There’s rust, faded seat numbers, bird shit, terrible toilets with no hot water and getting a pint can be a nightmare. It needs a bit of love and attention. Still, it’s quirky and beautifully situated and a move from it would break many hearts, mine included. Plans are afoot for a rebuild of the Taylor Stand, which look sympathetic to the rest of the ground and would be very welcomed.
We’ll almost certainly continue to bang on about Derby and suggest we’d have liked them to go out of business. Not all of us really think that and would miss our woolly rivals, but will probably join in. No one is purer than the driven snow in this - elements of the Rams’ support revelled in our multiple near-demises and some, sadly at the premature death of our former much-loved Chairman Nigel Doughty.
We’ll most-likely continue to applaud taking the knee very heartily and we’re an increasingly diverse bunch of sorts - The Supporters’ Trust work hard on this and the My City, My Shirt campaign really highlighted this. There’s a very active LGBT Trickies too.
No importance for anyone other than those of us in our row on the Lower Trent End, but the blokes behind us will continue to moan and whine incessantly. Why stop now, eh? I’ve got Brennan Johnson in the sweepstake for their whipping boy and feel pretty confident about that. They’ve already got ‘form’.
Some will let us down, again quite possibly when we play Liverpool, but at heart we’re a decent lot. Even most County fans will sometimes admit that and we must be incredibly annoying to them. We’re not scabs and we’re not all Tories. No one under 50 can remember the Miner’s Strike and you can’t pin that on us all. Nottingham as a city is a diverse, vibrant, creative place and it always returns a staunchly Labour Council, usually involved in some heavy-duty conflict with the Government of the day. Historically, we are the Rebel City: Robin Hood, Byron, DH Lawrence, citizens drove the Royalists out of Nottingham Castle during the Civil War, home to the Luddites, home to Arthur Seaton in the magnificent Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. The Shires are different, as they are around any major city. We’ve lost our industries and been economically battered over many decades now. We’ve a thriving music scene, the likes of Sleaford Mods at the forefront, and a major centre for rap in all its forms, r‘n’b and nu soul, after years in an embarrassing wilderness when only Paper Lace existed!
A number of us closely follow 1FC Köln, a friendship that arose out of the ‘79 European Cup semi-final, but don’t remind the Köln contingent of that! Supporters of both clubs regularly visit one another both solo and in larger groups. You might spot the odd NFFC/1FC Köln flag around or hear a group of visitors singing Köln’s splendid epic Hymme. Keeping the German link, real full-on leather badge-laden kutti and all, is long-time superfan Ebby, who moved here to be closer to his beloved Reds.
We’ll belt out Mull of Kintyre, but plenty of us remain confused about the exact lyrics. It has a good verse that never gets sung too, which might be cause for a social media campaign from yours truly soon. We’ll occasionally break into “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling”, but no one is really quite sure why. A Righteous Brother did visit to sing it back to us once, though.
Far have I travelled,
Much have I seen,
Goodison, Anfield, the places I’ve been,
Maine Road, Old Trafford,
Still echo to the sound,
Of the boys in the red shirts from the City Ground.
We’ll do a line or two of “Through The Seasons Before Us”, but not the glorious whole-thing, sadly lost in the mists of time:
Forest ever Forest, All our hopes are with you, True supporters forever, 'til our days are through, Laa la laa laal laa laa, Through the seasons before us, Down through history, We will follow the the Forest, On to victory, Laa la laa laal laa laa
Nottingham boot boys, Nottingham boot boys...
Visitors may try “We hate Nottingham Forest” and will get “And Nottingham Forest hate you, you bastards,” back from those old enough to remember doing that being a thing.
We’ll sing - mostly ironically - about being magic on and off the pitch, the latter definitely tongue-in-cheek from anyone who has tried to have any sort of meaningful interaction with our ticket office or get through to the right person on the phone or even by email. The North Korea comparison still stands.
If we win, you’ll get I Just Can’t Get Enough. Presumably we don’t play it if we lose, but it’s been so long, no one can be sure.
That’s us then and how we got to where we are. We’ve been away a while. Who knows how long we’ll stay, but we’re mighty glad to be back!
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