Through the seasons before us..

Sunday sees Forest take a trip down to Old Sarum, just to the north of Salisbury itself, to take on Salisbury City.  Salisbury City are in the same league as Yeading, who we demolished 5-0 in the previous round - although they sit proudly in 3rd place on the Conference South currently, so should prove a slightly more challenging prospect than “The Ding” in the last round - particularly given it’s at their place, and will be infront of the BBC cameras.

So we can expect over-excited coverage, much mentions of our illustrious history and patronising false praise for the small team from f**kwits like Mark Lawrenson!  It will be a full ground, with Salisbury selling out the home tickets quickly, and Forest issuing the last few tickets not snapped up by Away members and season ticket holders for general sale this afternoon - even with only around 350 Forest fans, I imagine they’ll be able to drum up a bit of an atmosphere.

As well as an impressive league record, Salisbury have yet to concede an FA Cup goal this season - and whilst I’m sure their defenders are relishing the prospect of facing our myriad of strikers, I imagine they are slightly nervous too!  I hate the patronising “biggest game in the club’s history” crap, but the fact is, it probably is - with a record attendance of 2,700 expected to attend the game.  Let’s hope they’ve ordered in enough Bovril, apparently their ground is somewhat open to the elements!

Forest, as we know, aren’t on a bad run - we’re still on an unbeaten run as far as I’m concerned, since we only succumbed to a penalty shootout last night against Bristol City.  I expect Smoulds to field a strong side against Salisbury, with Smith a doubt owing to a slight injury, but Cullip and Agogo are expected to make the squad - whether they start or not remains to be seen.  Ultimately, I would expect a spirited resistance from Salisbury but we really should have the quality to overcome them.

Of course, the reward for the victor is a place in the 3rd round draw with the big teams - and the chance of getting one is bigger than ever, since for the last two seasons there have mysteriously not been two Premiership teams drawn together in the 3rd round of the FA Cup - an accident?  I think not!  That said, a “big” team could constitute Sheffield United or Watford, call me deluded, but that doesn’t really excite me a great deal!

I forget whether it was during the terrible reign of Kinnear or the terrible reign of Megson that we were first linked with Marc Bircham, I suspect Kinnear - but he was certainly an exciting prospect of a signing then.  Apparently QPR have yet to offer the midfielder new terms, and his contract is up for renewal in the summer - and both ourselves and “dirty” Leeds United have been linked with a move for him during the transfer window.

The 28 year old was a firm QPR favourite, before getting oddly frozen out by previous R’s manager, the appropriately named Waddock.  John Gregory is in charge now, and had restored Bircham to the side - and given him the captain’s armband but now he’s sidelined with a hamstring injury - so if nothing else, we could get him to keep Cullip and Agogo company on the hamstring treatment table!

Despite their poor position Leeds remain a strange lure to players - but with a bit of luck he’d prefer to sign for a side on the way up with progressive manager rather than a side on the slide with a midget lunatic in charge of them.  It’s thought that if a move is made in January it would be for an initial fee followed by an additional bonus if we were to attain promotion.  He used to dye his hair silly colours too, which could have been entertaining, except he doesn’t seem to any more! Boo!

This fairly long interview on the BBC site is a really good read.  I’m usually quite quick to put the metaphorical boot in on David Johnson; whilst I concede he’s given us some great moments to cheer, in one particular season, he’s also given us more seasons of frustration and not fulfilling his potential.  But I must admit, whether it is deliberate spin or otherwise, I found myself warming to him reading some of his comments.

There is a very potted summary of his playing career, as well as his foray into coaching - which interestingly says Steve Chettle is involved in our under-12’s!  I never realised Chetts was still involved with us in any way shape or form, and find it slightly pleasing!  Johnson is largely working with the academy and doing a fair bit of scouting of opponents, with an aim of getting a permanent job with Forest - and potentially leading into management.  Whilst it’s all interesting, the nicest bit to read was his take on Forest now and the future:

“Obviously they are doing very well being six points clear and I see the players all the time, but I don’t know how they are playing as I’ve only watched them twice this season.

I can tell you about any other club in League One because of my scouting, just not Forest!

But the players are buzzing and saying it’s the best things have been for years, they love the manager and they love playing for him which is the most important thing.

Hopefully the manager will be able to bring in some silverware and then get the club back in the Premiership in a couple of years time because that’s where it belongs.

If we can keep this squad together and add a few more if we get promoted this season, we could end up doing what Manchester City did a few years ago and get back-to-back promotions.

We’ve fallen behind, that much is clear, but things are definitely heading in the right direction.”

And of course, he will always get good credit from Forest fans for coming out with:

“But the highlight of my career was captaining Forest, to think I’ve captained such a big club is a great honour.

So too was winning their Player of the Year award. You look at the names who have won it before, the likes of Roy Keane, Stuart Pearce and Des Walker, it’s a great feeling.”

Whilst the Reds are naturally disappointed to have exited the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy at the regional quarter final stage, there is perhaps a glimmer of positivity in the stated aim of Smoulderwood for us to never be involved in the much-maligned competitition again!  I was quite against the idea of the possibility of the JPT sharing space in our more illustrious trophy cabinent, but I must admit it did win me around for this season at least, and could have given some of our younger fans a taste of the kind of days out that we used to have in better times. 

Smoulds told the official Forest website: “We had a chance to go and win this competition, which would have been great because I’m hoping this is a competition we won’t have to play in again.  No-one will remember this is if we get promoted but I’m not going to start using that as an excuse.  We’re disappointed and you could see that on the players’ faces at the end.  We’ve got the consolation that we haven’t dropped league points ? but it doesn’t lessen the sense of disappointment in our dressing room at the moment.”

He’s done a pretty good job of reading the ’sensible things for a manager to say in the light of a cup exit’ handbook before facing the media, or maybe he is just sensible, but his attitude here is pretty much spot on for me.  The cup gave an opportunity not only for silverware, or at least tinware, it also gave us an opportunity to give fringe players a run out - which allowed us to experiment as well as hopefully try to keep squad morale higher.

The other big positive to come out of the game was Wes Morgan getting a goal, after a series of good performances at the back, is nice to see Big Wes starting to show the promise he did earlier in his Forest career - and a gashed head wasn’t going to stop him either as he almost added to his tally on the evening!

It has also perhaps highlighted a need for us to work on our penalty taking; although Sammy and Nicky converted theirs - Grant Holt’s miss was a bit embarrassing - and well, Kris was unlucky as Basso did well to save it, so maybe it’s not so bad - perhaps Lester was up to take the fifth it it was needed, I reckon he would’ve spooned it into the Bristol fans

Nottingham Forest - 2
Bristol City - 2
(Bristol win 4-2 on penalties)

Might as well start by getting the cliches out of the way; now is the time to concentrate on the league! Scathing as I was back in the early stages of this competition, I am a bit gutted to see us exit it, hopefully in the last time we’ll ever be involved in it. Of course, on a slight cliche tangent we can also hope that, as one of our promotion rivals, Bristol will go on in the competition and in so doing take their eye off the league, much as Swansea City did last season.

Smoulders was dressed like the ‘Milk Tray’ man for this game, and he took time out to talk with the barrel-like Gary Johnson before the game started. Bristol certainly started the brighter of the two sides, Forest looking very disjointed with an adjusted lineup of Pedersen in goal, a back three of Morgan, Breckin and Bennett, a midfield of Southall, Clingan, Gary Holt and Perch, and Lester, Grant Holt and Tyson up front. Whether it was taking time for the different lineup to get used to one another or other it was unclear, but Bristol certainly dominated possession - although only had a couple of long range efforts, and a scramble, all dealt with easily by Pedersen in the Forest goal.

It was in stoppage time in the first half that Wes Morgan broke the deadlock somewhat against the run of play - Clingan put the ball in, and Breckin headed on for Wes to put it into the net. It’s also worth mentioning that the referee (and linesman) missed a blatant penalty when Tyson turned brilliantly to get past a defender before getting felled in the box - bizarrely the referee opted to give a penalty to the away team for shirt pulling! But still, we were up at half time, and arguably had been the poorer side of the first half, so can’t grumble too much. Plus Derby were losing to Ipswich.

Early in the second half Grant unleashed a thunderbolt from range which the Bristol keeper did well to save; but it was due to go wrong soon after. Wes was ordered off the pitch for treatment to a gash on his head after a collision with Showumni - so whilst he was in the treatment room presumably being stitched and bandaged, Bristol scored an absolute humdinger of a goal. They had us under sustained pressure and finally the ball game in from the right, and the clearance reached Jevons who unleashed a spectacular overhead/bicycle kick from around 20 yards that left us with little chance. 1-1.

Wes came back on sporting a big bandage (reminiscent of Collymore against Notts County back in Frank Clark’s first season!), and almost got a second after a cross from Southall - only to be thwarted by Basso in the Bristol goal. It was Bristol who’d break the deadlock again, by breaking forward and taking advantage of some very slack defending. Showumni sidefooting in a square ball from Myrie-Williams again leaving Pedersen little chance to stop it.

The restless crowd started calling for the introduction of Commons, and he came on 10 minutes after Bristol had taken the lead - for the hardworking but increasingly-less-involved Nathan Tyson. I’m pretty sure Dobie came on too just before Grant Holt volleyed home a Southall cross to equalise for Forest - again, I was quite surprised when this happened as we’d looked bereft of ideas or purpose. Despite this we came close to nicking it when Bennett seemed to have gifted Grant Holt a perfect chance, but after controlling well he put it over from close range, and it was full time.

The penalties were taken at the Bridgford End, infront of the 161 travelling carrot-crunchers; Jevons was up first for Brizzle and scored, Grant took our first, and after a bit of gamesmanship with Basso he lost out, he started his run up before the whistle, thus hesitated, and put it wide. Carey took the next penalty, which Pedersen saved well, allowed Southall to level it for us by scoring. Orr scored their next one, Commons took our next which he blasted well - Basso doing very well to palm it onto the post, leaving McAllister with the unenviable decisive penalty, which he duly despatched to win the game for Bristol.

Penalties are never a nice way to decide a game, particularly given our record with taking penalties this season! But to be honest, whilst they didn’t create many chances, Bristol had much more play than us and were probably marginally the better team on the night (although both teams played below their potential); hopefully, as I said above, they go on from here and let the competition distract them from the league. If I had to pick our win over them in the league, or beating them in this cup, then I’d pick as it has actually happened - and I’d take this defeat for a win at their place later in the season too!

A few sources of amusement over the course of the evening - we saw a steward that looked like a ’sprite’ from the ‘Sprite’ soft drink adverts, and one (male) steward who looked like a post-operative transexual, and there was an amusing incident with one ofthe chavs near us heckling Gary Johnson’s son (one of Bristol’s players) by simply shouting “Oi! 33!…” (he looks around) “… MIDGET!!” after he’d been substituted and was warming down. I suppose the midget had the last laugh!

All in all, disappointing but not heartbreaking - as Smoulds said on the radio on the way back “We can concentrate on the league now, but not use that as an excuse for tonight” - he acknowledges there’s areas to work on, can’t argue with that. He also alluded to a few players carrying slight knocks, including Smith (Back), Commons (ankle), Curtis (forgot!) as well as the hamstrung duo of Agogo and Cullip - so we might see a similarly changed team to face Salisbury on Sunday.

And bastard Derby won in the end!

Forest seem to think there will be - the deadline for Away Members will pass tonight after our Johnstone’s Paint Trophy tie with Bristol City, and according to the Official Site, there will be between 50 and 100 tickets that will go on general sale to season ticket holders tomorrow morning from 9am - they will be sold on a first-come-first-served basis, and are likely to be snapped up pretty quickly!

Forest will only allow one ticket to be sold per season ticket holder, and will be recording the ticket numbers against that individual to try to prevent passing on tickets to other people - so they’re being pretty strict on it.  But it’s good news for those fans who weren’t away season ticket holders or away members who wanted to go - I counted myself among those until I factored in seasonal finances and a forthcoming trip to Bournemouth next week, so given the televisual opportunity to see the game, desptie being very tempted, I think I’ll give getting a ticket a miss.

Since ’tis the festive season (despite still being November - let’s face it, if you go by the average shop in town then Christmas starts in August anyway),  I thought it would be amusing to recall a festive chant, that I must admit I’ve not heard in a while - it amuses me as both an atheist and in the irreverent randomness of it - I mean, who thought to combine a Christmas Carol with a football chant?

“Away in a manger
No crib for a bed
The little Lord Jesus
Looked up and he said….

WE HATE DERBY!
AND WE HATE DERBY!
WE HATE DERBY!
AND WE HATE DERBY!

etc…”

A work of sublime random genius, in my humble opinion, and given the time of year hopefully we will hear it dusted off at the City Ground or on our travels some time soon - of course, the other notable member of our canon of seasonal chanting is only appropriate for away trips, and relates to ‘Jingle bells’, and how much fun it is to see Forest win away - which is good fun too!

Spotted this article on the BBC website a while ago; a typically candid interview with former Forest skipper Gareth Taylor.  It is largely focused on his somewhat optimistic aspirations for Tranmere Rovers this season, but there are a couple of snippets of interest from a Forest perspective as well.

Gaz of course was loaned to Crewe last season before being released in the summer and snapped up by the nearly-Scousers.  And he speaks of his ‘desperation’ to prove himself at Championship level after what has to be considered a fairly difficult time at Forest - under several managers during the darkest spell in living memory for the club.

I always liked Taylor as a person, as much as you can when you don’t really know a player - but he struck me as honest, hardworking and forthright both on the pitch and during media contacts - but he was a frustrating player as well, and endured the scapegoating treatment from Forest fans as fiercely as many players over reason years.  He said of Forest:

“When you come away from a place like Forest, people are saying it wasn’t right at the club for years, not just while I was there.

“But it just goes to show what a fresh face can do because they changed things around, went on a great run at the end of last season and are now top of the table.”

He doesn’t sound too bitter, which is a testament to either his good nature, or his professional handling of the media given that it was inevitable Forest fans would read the piece.  I’m not sure whether I buy into Tranmere’s promotion credentials, but they’re certainly flying high at the moment - certainly I feel pleased to see Gaz moving on and doing okay, he wasn’t my favourite player by a long stretch but he was treated harshly by some sections of our ’support’ whilst here.

I wouldn’t wish him too much luck though, I really don’t like Tranmere at all!!

I found a handy summary of betting odds for the Salisbury City vs Forest game at the weekend; and I must admit, I’m a bit disappointed!  Should cynical Forest fans plan on betting on an upset to compensate for the embarrassment of defeat, then you’re looking at about 6/1 - with Forest the obvious favourites at 2/5.  Even if you were to get a bit cleverer and go for a draw at half time, with Forest eventually triumphing then you’re looking at 10/3.

All in all, I’d be wanting a lot better odds to make up for the humiliation of losing this game; particularly since it’s televised for all to see!  For a summary of the various permutations and options available to any hopeful  bets then click here for the view from the local Wiltshire paper.  For the crazy man on the LTLF forum who tries to tempt people to bet on a 3-3 scoreline for every Forest match, then unfortunately the odds aren’t listed on the article, so you’ll need to check your bookies for that one!

Can’t say I’m a particularly big gambler on football, sometimes have a quid or two on the first scorer or correct scoreline and suchlike, but I don’t really have much of a gameplan so rarely win much - the nearest I ever came to a tactic was betting on Matthieu Louis-Jean to score first in every match, because you ended up with odds of about 80/1 or something mental - I don’t think I ever won though.

Liquidation, administration, financial difficulties - certainly a subject that, whilst not dear to the heart, is only too familiar to East Midlands football; and indeed, particularly Nottingham as Notts County almost went under not all that long ago.  Forest, of course, have had their own well-documented fiscal problems, solved by an excellent youth academy and a benevolent chairman, the Sheep are still grappling with a debt, and Les-da cheated their way out of theirs, thus unleashing harsher punishments on subsequent teams with financial difficulties.

So spare a thought for poor Scarborough - they are on the verge of folding, and are actively trying to pay their way to get out of it, but are encountering problems with their local council.  Basically, they want to sell their ground to a property developer to raise funds to both relocate, and clear their debts - unfortunately the local council have a covenant in place on the land which states it must be used for sporting activities - which seems a bit silly, because if they enforce it, the club will fold.

They’re in a whole world of problems on the pitch, with an enforced relegation and a ten point deduction due to financial issues - I must admit, it’s maddening to hear of regulators and bureaucratic lunacy preventing a small club from trying to proactively solve its own problems - so if you follow this link, you will find the full story and also a link to a petition, please sign it and help out Scarborough in their quest to maintain their existence.

Apologies firstly for the crap headline (it was meant to sound a bit like ‘are you going to Scarborough Fair?’ - it patently is a bit rubbish) and that the post isn’t about Forest for any of you picking up this story on news feeds or aggregators, but I do feel it is something relevant to all supporters of football.  Thanks to Gareth for dropping me a line with the link.  Sign the petition, it’ll only take a minute or two, and then pass it on.