Through the seasons before us..

I’m quite irked by this competition on all sorts of levels, I know that the late great Brian Clough used to have a philosophy of trying to win any competition you get a chance to, but personally I think this one is worth passing by in favour of ensuring our key players are fit for the all-important league campaign. But there are specific reasons, other than the Mickey-Mouseness of the competition, that it irritates me.

Don’t misunderstand me, I don’t think we’re too big to be considered for such a tournament, and I don’t deny a day out in Cardiff for the final could be a good laugh, and certainly the kind of day that many of our younger supporters won’t have had the good fortune to have enjoyed with Forest, however:

1. Loads of teams have been granted a bye for the first round (meaning they don’t have to play, they just go straight into the second round). Forest aren’t amongst these.  It makes the whole competition seem ridiculously poorly planned in my opinion.
2. Forest (and indeed, Notts) have been placed in the SOUTH EAST group (the teams are grouped into four regions) – that puts us alongside teams like Gillingham. Which is frankly insulting. It would be preferable to have a midlands break, but southern? How rude!
3. There is a ruling relating to resting players, it seems a little wooly, but it is along the lines that the majority of your starting eleven have to have featured in the majority of your league fixtures. That seems ludicrous to me, I feel Forest should be actively using competitions like this to give fringe players competitive experience, and not risking key first team players to boot. Stupid! Lots of pretend injuries and illnesses are in order, please, Colin!

You might have noticed I’m not too enamoured with his at all – that said, if we draw Notts County it could be amusing, we’ve not played them competitively for 12 years when we lost at Lego Lane, Notts fans still celebrate this monumental event (we were promoted that season!), so it’d be either amusing to give them a less savoury immediate memory, or at least give them something more up to date to feel cheerful about.

Certainly we shouldn’t be taking it too seriously – Swansea went on to win it last season, arguably at the expense of their league form which took a serious tumble at the end of the season.

Filed under: News | 2 Comments »

I always felt a bit sorry for Gaz when he was with us – he was bought by Hart as a player to come off the bench and change a game (in my opinion), but was rushed into the side when still recovering from an injury to replace David Johnson, who’d just broken his leg, and ever since then he’s been a scapegoat to sections of the Forest support.

Forest fans like a scapegoat, they always have done.  Gareth of course was unfortunate to be at the club during a particularly bad ebb in our history, but why he was singled out for so much abuse always puzzled me over a time when there may have been more talented footballers on the pitch who quite clearly weren’t putting in as much effort.

Certainly he seems rejuvenated at Tranmere Rovers this season – he’s scored a couple, had a few assists and is yet to pick up a booking, and any scriptwriter worth his salt would have him popping up with the winning goal infront of the away end at Prenton Park on saturday.  As a neutral I could see the appeal in that, naturally as a Forest fan it would be horrendous!

I still harbour fond memories of Taylor ending our sequence of games without a win with a diving header against Bradford infront of the Trent End, and numerous other times his unglamourous but hard work earned us points – I wasn’t hugely sorry to see him leave, because we do have better players now, in my opinion, and certainly I believe he needed to get away from a place that must have been a nightmare for him at times. 

He’s a player to whose strengths we never played, and as such I’m sure he was as disappointed as we were with his output in terms of goals or assists – let’s just hope that Calderwood has a better idea about what his strengths are than Hart, Kinnear and Megson did – because then we might have half a chance of nullifying them, but I can remember Taylor causing aerial havoc in our defence before we signed him, and I fear he’ll do the same tomorrow.

Filed under: News | Comments Off