Never Mind the Reds E-Book

Richard Harrison

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 82

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

So, you think you're a true Nottingham Forest fan? A proper Garibaldi? Yes, you've a shirt or two but do you really know the history of the Club? Can you name the pub the club was founded in? Or who Brian Clough's first signing for the Reds was? Test yourself here with the ultimate quiz book on Nottingham Forest FC. A book for any and all supporters of that famous team in red, it's the perfect companion for those long journeys to away games or nights down at the local. From famous players, managers and matches, to transfers, incidents and trivia, it's all in here, designed to tease and test your knowledge of the club.

Leseprobe

First published in 2016

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2016

All rights reserved

© Richard Harrison, 2016

The right of Richard Harrison to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUB ISBN 978 0 7509 6924 6

Original typesetting by The History Press

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

Contents

Foreword by John McGovern

Introduction

Acknowledgements

Round 1 ‘Through the seasons before us’

Round 2 ‘Down through history’

Round 3 ‘We will follow the Forest’

Round 4 ‘On to victory’

Round 5 ‘Nottingham, Nottingham, Nottingham’

Round 6 ‘We’re second in the League’

Round 7 ‘Off! Off! Off!’

Round 8 ‘We’re going to Grimsby’

Round 9 ‘Brian Clough and Peter Taylor!’

Round 10 ‘And now you’re gonna believe us’

Round 11 ‘You what?’

Round 12 ‘The best damn team in the land’

Round 13 ‘Running round Wembley with the Cup’

Round 14 ‘We’ve won the Cup twice!’

Round 15 ‘We’ll support you ever more!’

Round 16 ‘To Europe, to Europe’

Round 17 ‘He’s gonna cry in a minute’

Round 18 ‘Psycho, Psycho, Psycho!’

Round 19 ‘He’s one of our own’

Round 20 ‘He scores when he wants’

Round 21 ‘You what? You what?’

Round 22 ‘He gets the ball; he scores a goal’

Round 23 ‘Nottingham Forest are magic’

Round 24 ‘We’re by far the greatest team’

Round 25 ‘I was born under a Trent End goal’

Round 26 ‘Shall we sing a song for you?’

Round 27 ‘You’ll never sing this’

Round 28 ‘Oh mist rolling in from the Trent’

Round 29 ‘Who are ya? Who are ya?’

Round 30 ‘You what? You what? You what, you what, you what?’

The Answers

Foreword

By Forest’s double European Cup-winning captain,

JOHN McGOVERN

Forest is one of the clubs in the Championship that’s got a very proud history – 150 years – so 2015–16 has been a very important year regarding celebrating it. When the Italian patriot Garibaldi came to England, his rousing public speeches inspired Forest to adopt his red shirt as their colour – hence the Garibaldi Reds. They won the FA Cup in 1898 and won it again in 1959, so there’s some great history and it’s something to celebrate.

I was part of the most magnificent period in the 1970s and ’80s under Brian Clough and Peter Taylor – the best in the business. Taylor would recruit players and Clough would motivate them and give them confidence. There’s even been a movie about it – I Believe in Miracles – showing the extraordinary feat the team achieved in gaining promotion, winning the League at the first attempt, winning the European Cup at the first attempt, and then retaining it.

The European Cup was in this country seven years out of eight, courtesy of Liverpool, Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa. In my humble opinion, none of the present-day sides in the Premier League could have lived with us, Liverpool or Villa – we were just better sides. Does it appear in this country seven years out of eight now? No. If anyone doubts that, that’s the biggest statistic you need.

Half the statistics that you hear are just absolutely meaningless; telling you how far somebody has run and extolling their virtues. Only if you’re running in the right positions at the right time and are contributing to your side winning the game does it mean anything whatsoever. The only statistic the manager needs to know when the final whistle blows is are we one goal in front? ’Cos if we are, that’ll do me.

It is a privilege to have such a great history and something to be particularly proud of. I hope you enjoy testing yourselves on it here, rekindling some memories and maybe learning something new.

John McGovern, 2016

Introduction

If, like me, you’ve ever ‘watched’ an entire Forest away match on Ceefax, made a 200-mile round trip to watch a meaningless mid-week pre-season friendly in torrential rain, or shouted ‘Two! Two! Two!’ when we won a corner in a game you were listening to on the radio, then this book is for you. And if you don’t even support Forest but have a vague recollection that we were quite good in the days when we seemed to be called Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest, then this book is for you too.

We certainly were good once – more than once, in fact, and one of the aims of this book is to recognise that there is much more to Forest than the glory years under Clough in the late 1970s and ’80s. By the end of the First World War we had won a League, triumphed in an FA Cup Final and appeared in numerous semi-finals, posted record scores in two competitions, sailed off on tour to a far-flung continent and won a national tournament to mark the end of the war. If the years between the wars were relatively unsuccessful (though not uneventful), the next quarter century made up for them, with two promotions, a further FA Cup win (finishing with only nine fit men), a genuine challenge for the double at a time when it had only been won once in the twentieth century, and a couple of seasons of European football.

That said, by the time Clough came along Forest were treading water in Division 2 and showing no sign of making a serious bid to return to the top flight any time soon. When Clough’s mate Peter Taylor joined him, the gentleman whose Foreword you eagerly turned to before reading these words said it was no longer a case of whether Forest would get promoted but when. But he couldn’t have imagined the run of success that would follow and it’s not without reason that the 2015 film and book about what have come to be known as ‘the glory years’ (1975–1980) used the word ‘miracle’ to describe it. Needless to say, there’s plenty in here for those who want to recall the times when Wembley trips seemed to be an annual event and it was a genuine surprise if we lost at home.

But even those with the rosiest of red-tinted spectacles would accept that Champions of Europe is not Forest’s natural place in the scheme of things. That we have fallen so far since those days only emphasises just how high we climbed. Forest fans are sometimes accused of living in the past, but the level of support we retain in the face of high ticket prices and a prolonged lack of success on the field shows admirable loyalty in a troublesome present and commitment to an uncertain future.

In the century and a half since some blokes in a pub decided to give this new-fangled football lark a try, Forest have been magnificent (irregularly), rather ordinary (a lot of the time), and spectacularly poor (mercifully rarely). But we have frequently been at the forefront of new developments in the game, we can probably claim more ‘firsts’ than just about any other club, and we have consistently been admired for both the attractiveness and the discipline of our play (notwithstanding occasional dishonourable exceptions in both cases). Add to that one of the best and most distinctive club crests and well over a century at an enviable riverside location and, for many of us, being a Red is as much about the whole of the club’s rich history as it is the trophy-laden years. Well, almost.

So whether you are a long-suffering Forest obsessive or a chance passer-by who has casually plucked this book from a shelf, I hope, to borrow from Lord Reith, that you will be informed, educated and entertained. None of which remotely applies to the Hillsborough tragedy of 1989, when ninety-six people went to a football match and never came home. It is the only significant event in Forest’s history that I have consciously omitted, as a light-hearted book such as this is not the place to discuss it.

Otherwise, I have tried to condense 150 years into thirty rounds of eleven questions, inevitably concentrating on the more modern eras that most fans will remember or at least know a bit about. Although the vast majority of the questions deal with the years from the 1959 FA Cup win onwards, the preceding hundred years or so are far too eventful to ignore, so the first few rounds take us from the club’s foundation to that second FA Cup win.

A book like this will inevitably and rightly celebrate the outstanding successes Forest have enjoyed, but it’s the bad times that make the good ones so much better and I have included plenty of reminders that, as mentioned, there is much more to Forest than the rewards we reaped for having the game’s best-ever manager at the peak of his powers.

Where possible I have tried to check the facts and confirm the anecdotes in one or more of the various statistical histories of the club and its players. I am particularly indebted here to the late Ken Smales’ Forest: The First 125 Years (Temple Printing) and its successor, Nottingham Forest: The Official Statistical History (Pineapple Books). The opinions expressed are, of course, my own, likewise any errors that may have crept in.

While Forest haven’t always had a great team, I hope this book gives ample evidence that we will always be one of the game’s great clubs.

Richard Harrison, 2016