Through the seasons before us..

It keeps slipping my mind, but I suppose it’s remiss of me not to mention it at all.  A week tomorrow Leicester City will visit the City Ground to contest the 2nd round of the Carling Cup following us limping past Chester in the first round on penalties.  After a muted response around the Forest community it’s interesting to see Forest have reduced the tickets, and Mark Arthur attempted to stir up a bit of interest by saying:

“Having renewed our rivlary with Derby in the Brian Clough Trophy game in pre-season, it’s great to be able to do the same with Leicester.

We hope the attractive ticket prices will encourage people to come along and offer their support to Colin Calderwood and his players as we look to book a place in the third round of the Carling Cup.

We’re looking to attract a bumper crowd to generate a big atmosphere and make it an occasion to remember.”

Hmm.  I think not, Mark.  You really haven’t got your finger on the fan’s pulses lately, have you?  As if the contrived and staged family fun day extravaganza at Pride Park wasn’t misguided enough – are you seriously suggesting that anybody has any feeling other then “Meh!” about Leicester City.  Sure, they don’t like us very much, and I dare say if you had to choose “like” or “dislike” as a Forest fan talking about them, you’d choose “dislike”, but that’s about it.

On the flipside, the fixture seems to have captured the imaginations of the Foxes fans, who can scent an opportunity of a first City Ground win since 1972 – and let’s face it, it’s not an unrealistic aspiration for them.  So if the fact it’s a competition we shouldn’t be taking too seriously, against a team who we don’t consider rivals, for £16, and that it’s likely to become a festival of leering blue-and-white clad neanderthals is hardly motivation enough for me to definitely commit to attending.  Sorry Mark.

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It seems Swansea goalkeeper Dorus De Vries has been attempting to cause a bit of a stir with his post-match comments on Saturday.  I don’t think anyone who was at the game nor listened would deny that Swansea certainly could feel rightly aggrieved at not getting a winner – and Forest seemed to play in a manner that we often have to endure our opponents trying when they visit the City Ground.

But still – should we be ashamed?  We are nursing injuries to numerous key players – they also happen to be our key attacking players.  Factor in the questionable match-fitness of both Grant Holt and Junior Agogo, and I think it becomes perfectly understandable why we perhaps we not the most attack-minded of teams on our travels at the weekend.

Now, Dorus.  As a fan old enough to remember winning League Cups, I’m afraid that if you think holding the Jacks to a draw is comparable, even given our now much more lowly status, then you’re getting a wee bit ahead of yourself.  Your comments should have been centred on the positive performance of Swansea on the day – at times their attacking play sounded excellent – however, if you can’t overcome a team who defend in numbers – you won’t get far in this league!

There’s probably an element of the media twisting the ‘keepers comments to seem more provocative than they were intended to be, but it’s a stark demonstration of why perhaps footballers are not always the greatest ambassadors for their clubs in such instances – ultimately it just smells rather of a combination of sour grapes, along with a big dose of stating the bleeding obvious.

Of course, on another day we could have deservedly been defeated – on another day perhaps De Vries would have struggled with the gigantic chip on his shoulder to get across the goal to save Sammy Clingan’s shot we could’ve got an undeserved victory – so chill out Mr De Vries, this won’t be the first game you’re involved with that doesn’t turn out how you may feel it should have.

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