Derby County - 2
Nottingham Forest - 0
I wrote before about my distaste surrounding the whole concept of both the idea of the Brian Clough trophy and certainly for playing a friendly against our bitter rivals. Don’t misunderstand me though, Brian Clough deserves any recognition coming his way, and the fact that significant sums are being raised for local charities is brilliant, but I’ve not changed my opinion about it since we’ve failed at our first bash at this new trophy.
Firstly, this idea automatically becomes some kind of tug of war between the fans over who the Great Man liked best. Now, who cares? And this proved to be true - on the radio you could clearly hear chants of “Brian Clough is a Ram” and “2-0 to Brian Clough” - erm, yeah. Okay. This isn’t a dig at the sheep fans either, I imagine if the boot were on the other foot (fanciful, I realise!), some of our fans would have come out with something just as crass.
It was nice to hear the Forest fans instigating chants of ‘Stand up for Brian Clough’ - somewhat more inclusive given the proposed ‘family’ nature of the event, which leads me neatly on to my second grievance with the concept. You see, football is becoming so hideously sanitised, and again, let me explain that further - I abhor any kind of violence, be it related to football or otherwise - but what’s wrong with a bit of banter? What’s wrong with rivalry? I do not believe that we can play such a thing as a friendly against that team.
Of course, cries of ‘just because you’re losing!’ could well emanate from expressing these views - and there is an element of this, what kind of folly is it for us - a league one club - to have organised a friendly, not only against our rivals, but our rivals who’ve just been promoted to the top flight. It is an absolutely absurd idea - notwithstanding the tasteless idea of waving the memory of Brian Clough in trophy form as some kind of prize. It’s just not football as I love the game.
On the flip side, thousands of pounds have been raised for charity which is fantastic, and 4,700 trickies clearly didn’t share my misgivings and it sounds like they fully played their part in contributing to the atmosphere - so fair play to ‘em. And most importantly, no chavvy pitch invasions this time around. But well, I’ve had a gut full of nightmares at Pride Park, and frankly am very pleased I didn’t waver in my determination to not attend this fixture.
But yes, a game took place too. From the coverage I heard it sounds like Derby were the deserved winners. Questions of offside for their second goal, a first class idiot for a referee, and an opponent fully two leagues above us - it was never going to be easy. It sounds like we tried to play on the deck, Moloney sounded decent - but once again we sounded painfully unable to finish off chances, which perhaps is not all that surprising when Scott Dobie is one of the strikers.
A meaningless friendly? No. It’s never meaningless against them, even in the Masters tournament. It is folly to try to instigate some kind of ridiculous ‘family fun day’ events like this, I hope we never try it again. Now Smoulds, please go out and get us a striker to tide us over ’til Agogo and/or Tyson are available - or start with Sinclair, he sounded more exciting in the time he was on compared to the other two who seemed to achieve very little for the majority of the game.
31 July, 2007 at 10:25 pm
They were saying Big Grant might have a niggling injury, which might explain why he was crap on Saturday at Motherwell when I was there, and crap on the radio tonight.
31 July, 2007 at 10:49 pm
This might sound stupid, but is dobie still playing himself back into fitness, which in my opinion will take another 3-6 months, or has he always been shit. How good was he when he was fully fit at the start of his forest career?
31 July, 2007 at 11:20 pm
I’ve tried, *really hard* to give Dobie a chance given his terrible injury record, but he’s really not done much to impress me as a striker. He has shown workrate and endeavour in glimpses, but he doesn’t look dangerous at all.
With Grant potentially crocked too we really could do with getting another striker in. Either than or chucking the kids on - Sinclair and Brown sounded useful against Notts!
1 August, 2007 at 6:58 am
I’d agree with nffc regarding Dobie. He works hard, and occassionally shows glimpses of greater things to come. But I just cant see him scoring 20 goals this season, which is what we need. For the wages they’re paid, ANY player should work hard and be talented, but his primary job is to score goals. Maybe if a couple of the chances that went close last night had gone in his tail would’ve gone up and he’d be off to a flyer. But unfortunately for him the goal seems to be 6 inches too narrow and low. Maybe if the goal against Yeovil had been the clincher things would have been different…?
Let’s be realistic here though, how many 20- goals-a-season strikers are up for sale at the moment? Forget Cole, he hardly earned his money at Birmingham. Eastwood? Didn’t do it last year. Trundle? I like him, but half the Trent End slag Commons off every time he touches the ball for being overweight/lazy, so what chance Trundle?!
Last season, without our main striker, we managed to be 7 points clear by December (without playing particularly well). This season I think we have a more talented, more solid looking squad, so let’s give the youngsters a chance to feed off the quality we have in midfield until Tyson/Holt/Agogo are fuuly fit and fighting for their places.
Incidentally, did anyone else see the Alan Ball benefit game at the weekend? Sign Merson NOW!! And get Des back. Pure class.
1 August, 2007 at 8:50 am
Lets start with a few positives:
1. Great turn out from the Forest Fans
2. Maloney was outstanding, may well make the rightback spot his own this season
3. Dale Roberts - made a couple of good saves (let down by poor defening at times)
4. Lennon and Clingan seemed to gel quite well with some neat passing between them
5. Sinclair looked lively and could very well make a name for himself in the future
Now with the negatives:
1. no cutting edge(again)Dobie and Holt were poor and both gave the ball away too easily. This pair is not the way forward
2. Once again the partnership of Breckin and Morgan did not look effective - surely Breckin can no longer be part of a first choice centreback pairing ???
3. Why were the back four intent on pinging back passes to the goalkeeper ??
Anyway, I think there was enough in the game to suggest we have a much stronger squad than last season so ‘lets get this party started!’
1 August, 2007 at 9:08 am
Did Commo pick up an injury last night?
1 August, 2007 at 9:13 am
He did pick up a knock, he tried to run it off and I think was taken off as a precaution (at least I hope so).
1 August, 2007 at 9:14 am
yeah he hurt his knee
depite the result last night it was a good atmosphere, but i keep noticing the lack of widemen. they all follow the ball like school boys. the only acception was the young lad moloney, who should be proud of himself.
good article, love the picture. I agree that it’s not right to have a friendly against them. although i might of thought differently if we’d won!
1 August, 2007 at 10:15 am
Smoulders stated Commons had a dead leg after the game and should be able to play against the Blades. As too Davies and hopefully Agogo too.
We’ve been looking a little lightweight for goals all pre-season to be honest. About Dobie I personally think its a bit harsh write him off. I’m sure feelings were vastly different immediately after he scored in the play-off.
Strikers feed off confidence. Obviously Dobie has been out for a while so he’s lacking sharpness but most importantly his missing a good run of goal scoring. We should be giving him a chance this season to get the games to get the goals and the fans should be backing him not booing him. After all it is in our best interests for him to do well.
Interesting though how last season it was perhaps considered that the striker department was our stength with midfield as the weakness. Now its flipped is anyone regretting letting go of Jack Lester?
1 August, 2007 at 3:06 pm
I think there is a general feeling that we WANT Dobie to succeed, but sort of know he won’t with us. Yeah, I’d like to give him a chance, because i appreciate grafters, but what happens if he hasn’t scored in 10 games at the start of the season and we’re mid-table?
Still, by the sound of it we weren’t humiliated at pride park, so there is hope for the season…!
1 August, 2007 at 7:33 pm
I feel sorry for Dobie; at least there is the effort he puts in. Before Grant Holt went off he looked like a hungover sunday league player. He was easily out muscled in every challenge.
Bastians also looked poor. His passing and touch were awful. He showed a lot of promise when Megson played him for a couple of games but going off on loan to Northwich Victoria was a waste of time; he’ll learn the same playing in League One.
Moloney looked good, often taking on 3 players and getting through. If he had better support on the right he would have made even more of an impact. McGugan was also impressive at times.
I agree with nffc about the idea behind this trophy, at this point with Forest where they are it’s pretty pointless.
5 August, 2007 at 6:58 pm
Fuck Derby! Ok he won a title with them,but the trophy surely should be at forest. I know which one he’d have chosen…Leeds!! Ha ha. Just kidding. Clough was forest through and through. It’s a tragedy he never got the England job. They’d rather employ the deadlegs we have seen last 30 years…
9 August, 2007 at 10:10 pm
And fuck evéry chairman who voted against us today. One day maybe it will be their club eh?
9 August, 2007 at 10:16 pm
For what it’s worth, I hear we were one of the clubs that voted in your favour.
10 August, 2007 at 10:50 am
Couldn’t the league just have made Sherwood the Bear shag Bates and Risdale from behind as a punishment?
Just think, we weren’t far off the same problems during the Scholar/Platt era.
10 August, 2007 at 4:45 pm
If that is true nffc fair play to forest. A curse and a pox on every frigging chairman that betrayed us. If their crappy club is in the dock they can expect the same”generosity”. Why not impose a fine? Taking points hurts the fans,who are the club.
Mattyboy,i would not wish it on your club. It’s a disgrace!
No club has ever started on such a minus. It is gonna be tough…
10 August, 2007 at 6:11 pm
Reliably informed the below teams supported Leeds:
Bradford City
Burnley
Colchester United
Darlington
Gillingham
Ipswich Town
Nottingham Forest
Plymouth Argyle
Queens Park Rangers
Sheffield United
Sheffield Wednesday
Stockport County
Stoke City
Swindon Town
Watford
Wrexham
Bit of Yorkshire solidarity in there… surprised Les-dar had the nerve to vote against them, though, considering their track record. You’d think Cardiff might have backed them too given Ridsdale’s association with them now.
10 August, 2007 at 9:36 pm
Tht is very useful. Thanks! I’ll take your word for it it is accurate. thanks mate. I notice the premier league all went for themselves eh? It was the very lower clubs who could have gained who humbled them. The F***s!
10 August, 2007 at 9:38 pm
My understanding was it was just the 72 football league clubs who voted - so no Prem teams. There’s a fair few sides in there who’ve had their own financial troubles recently (and indeed, continue to do so).
9 June, 2008 at 6:05 pm
Hi nffc. Looks like it was just too much,the 15 point burden. I knew we had no chance on the appeal. It would have caused uproar and all the other clubs would sue.
Congratulations to Forest on your promotion. For Leeds,it’s another season of torment till we get out of this div!