Nottingham Forest Now and Then: Celebrating 150 years

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Nottingham Forest celebrated a very special birthday this week. Notts TV reporter and Reds fan Matt Ball takes us on a journey through City Ground past – and offers his views on the club’s present and future.


 

It’s a landmark that very few clubs have reached – 150 years in existence – and even fewer have experienced as many highs and lows as Nottingham Forest.

Brian Clough once said: “If God had wanted us to play football in the clouds, he’d have put grass up there”, epitomising Nottingham Forest’s approach to football since they were born in 1865.

Playing football the right way is something that Forest as a club have always tried to champion throughout their history and was a major part of their European Cup successes in 1979 and 1980, which to this day is still seen as one of the greatest football stories ever and the influence behind ‘I Believe in Miracles’, a documentary film that hit the big screens last year.

When a group of shinty players (a sport that greatly resembles hockey) opted to switch sports back in 1865, they probably wouldn’t have expected the heights their club would one day reach, as a football team called Nottingham Forest.

City-Ground-1898
The City Ground in 1898

Inspired by neighbours Notts County (who were founded three years prior), the former shinty players got to work establishing the club’s official colour of Garibaldi red, which is still the kit shade to this day.

The group even donated a set of football kits to Arsenal in 1886 to help them get under way.

Forest won their first FA Cup back in 1898, beating local rivals Derby County 3-1, the same year the Reds moved from the Forest Rec to the place they still call home today, the City Ground.

Forest are responsible for introducing a number of footballing innovations which are still being used today. This includes being the first team to wear shin pads in 1874 and to provide the referee with a whistle (1878).

They also bought Trevor Francis, the first £1 million player, from Birmingham City back in 1979.

clough, forest, nffc, brian clough
Photo by Paul Townsend

They are still best-known for their double-European cup winning side of 1979 and 1980 under the management of Brian Clough, who many regard as the ‘best manager that England never had’.

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Forest have always maintained a fierce rivalry with Derby County. The two clubs are separated by less than 20 miles and have faced off in some epic clashes over the years including the 5-2 thrashing of Derby in 2010 and last year’s 2-1 victory at Derby’s iPro stadium, with youngster Ben Osborn netting the winner in injury time. Sandwiched between was Steve McClaren’s promotion-chasing Derby side dispatching Forest 5-0.

If that last result didn’t give you a clue, you can imagine that growing up supporting Forest, especially since the turn of the millennium hasn’t been the easiest viewing. 

‘The Reds’ or ‘Tricky Trees’ as they are also known are no longer toppling the giants of European football and have to make do with playing the likes of Rotherham United and Brentford on a weekly basis.

The latest generation of Forest fans have watched their side suffer relegation to the third tier of English football and bare witness to three unsuccessful play-off campaigns in the last ten years – which some would say sums up the club’s fall from grace since the ‘Cloughie era’.

There are also fans who would agree that Forest are one of the greatest underachievers of the last 20 or so years.

Forest and Notts County are the two geographically closest professional football grounds in England
Forest and Notts County are the two geographically closest professional football grounds in England. Picture: Lasse1974.

It is strange the Reds, along with the likes of Leeds United and Sheffield Wednesday, are languishing in England’s second tier when you consider that Forest are behind only eight sides in England’s most successful club rankings in terms of trophies.

Reds fans are quick to jump to the defence of Forest when people say they are ‘not a big club’ – but some would also point out there is no ‘right’ to be a Premier League side.

Progress has also been hampered by off-field problems. Forest are in a transfer embargo and restricted to free transfers and loan signings (provided that the players are signed on contracts for less than £10,000 a week), although this is due to be lifted this summer.

There has also been a plethora of managers in recent seasons.

Manager after manager has failed to swiftly deliver what Chairman Fawaz Al-Hasawi and fans demand, promotion to the Premier League. But many would agree the potential is there in spades.

Billy Davies had Forest come very close twice to delivering promotion in 2010 and 2011, only to fall short at the final hurdle both times.

In the end, Davies fell out with the late Nigel Doughty who was chairman at the time but is still probably considered to be the best manager the Reds have had since Ol’ Big Head himself.

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But Davies was axed not only by Doughty but also by his successor, Fawaz Al-Hasawi – and his second stint at the club came after a run of poor results and questionable methods in managing the club and dealing with the press.

Fast forward to 2015 and former Forest striker Dougie Freedman was tasked with taking over from legendary former captain Stuart Pearce. He was quick to outline that the Reds were a club very much in a period of transition.

It would have been nice for Forest to be spending their 150th year as a football club in the top division of English football rather than in an embargo and the bottom half in the Championship, as looks likely.

But by the time their 200th anniversary comes around, or even their 175th, the club might have a bit more to celebrate than the exploits of a genius in Brian Clough and his players in the late 70s.

But what is certain is that no-one will ever replicate the events of Munich and Madrid in 1979 and 1980.

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