Through the seasons before us..

Victor Chandler: The chairman of the company that bears his name..

This is my thousandth post on NFFCblog. To be honest, I’m a bit disappointed that the subject matter is Forest announcing their new shirt sponsor which – whilst important – isn’t the kind of exciting ‘fanfare’ type update I was hoping to give. 

But anyway, there’s been lots of speculation, names like Santander, Childline, EON or Balls to Poverty have been mooted, but it turns out that upon ending their relationship with credit card company Capital One, Forest have gone one better on the moral highground scale and gone for a gambling company.

According to Forest, Victor Chandler are the world’s foremost online b0okmaker and gaming company.  As a reasonably avid online gambler I’d never heard of them, so that seems like a bit of an exaggeration!  However, a one year deal has been struck for a ’significant six figure sum’, and in the process Reds legend Viv Anderson has been appointed their ambassador for football – I’m not quite sure what that means, but good on you, Viv!

This is the company’s largest foray so far into the world of football sponsorship – and given their odds of 40/1 (according to Victor Chandler himself) of Forest winning the Championship, they’re setting their sights quite low so far!  Good news from a corporate point of view, personally I liked the idea of Forest supporting a charity however there’s a clear need for revenue too – so if we’re achieving that then that’s good news.

Presumably this means the desire I’d been harbouring to be able to buy a replica kit without a sponsors logo might now be in vain, though!

Whilst perhaps not a well known name in football circles (at least not by me!) he is a very prominent and influential person in the wider world of sports betting, particularly horseracing.  He has sponsored horse racing events, the British Masters golf tournament as well as televised poker tournaments.  So despite my initial ignorance, Mr Chandler is a prime mover and shaker in his industry – so the portent of him getting on board with Forest has to augur well for our prospects.

Brecks: heading back to Chesterfield

Whilst the world has been consumed with talk of the untimely demise of Michael Jackon, I’ve been keeping my ear to the ground and some of the white noise of endless whispers and rumours are starting to become a little more discernable than others.  Having chatted with a few folks it would seem that a lot of the rumours doing the rounds regarding agreements with players are indeed factual.

I have absolutely no idea why Forest are apparently sitting on their hands and not releasing information, I’m assuming finalisations need to be happening or something, since tomorrow is the deadline for season ticket renewal I would’ve thought ideally an announcement before now would have been preferable for them.  That said, I took the plunge and renewed mine earlier today, despite the lack of news!

So, unfortunately I can’t say who I’ve been talking to – but what I have heard is consistent with rumours elsewhere regarding eight ‘confirmed’ incomings, one of them from Liverpool (I wonder who that could be?), one from Brighton (with Thornhill going on loan there, it would make sense, wouldn’t it? – strengthened by news of Joe Heath going out on loan yesterday).

The other snippet was a loan signing, with no other detail than that – there’s been endless speculation about loan targets already – so I shan’t add to it or try to pick a name!  As for the supposed other five signings, well, I have no idea – we do need them though, so let’s hope to actually have some concrete news to write about soon rather than rumour-peddling.

Given the gargantuan size of the list of players we’ve been linked to, it would be churlish to speculate although much of internet-land still seems pretty certain that Adebola has been a done deal for weeks (if that’s true, why not release that information?!), which leaves four more slots to fill.  Billy will want to get stuff sorted soon before pre-season begins a-proper.

In the world of confirmed news, some good news for former skipper Ian Breckin, he’s agreed a two year deal with former club Chesterfield, turning down moves to Burton and Walsall to team up with another former Red (just!) John Sheridan.  Good luck to you, Brecks.  Chesterfield is rapidly becoming a team of Forest cast-offs!

Pembo: Leaving with our very best wishes

The fixtures have lured me back onto the internet – Bradford in the cup isn’t the most inspiring, but of course today’s release of the league fixtures is always going to pique our interest!  For the first time in ages we start and finish away from home, but firstly a few other things.

John Pemberton has departed the Reds, and I’d like to wish him well – I don’t ‘know’ any of the Forest staff but he always struck me as a diligent man of integrity, and of course his time as a caretaker manager last season was incredibly successful – so thanks for your hard work, John, and I – and I’m sure all other Forest fans – wish you all the best for the future.  Also the chap who vandalised the Brian Clough statue in Nottingham has been jailed.  Good.

So, on to the fixtures.  The Football League are incredibly uppity about people reproducing their fixture lists – so whilst I probably wouldn’t have done anyway, I legally can’t.  Obviously the eye is drawn to fixtures against Derby – we start off at home this time at the end of August, playing the return fixture in the badlands at the end of January.  Newcastle are the other opponent that most seem to look out for – they visit us on 17th October, our trip to St. James’ Park on 27th March.

You can browse our fixtures in full on the BBC website (predictably the Forest website is yet to be updated with them as I type!).

Makes it seem somewhat more real, doesn’t it?  Now we could just use some nice positive transfer news to engender a bit of optimism!

Around this time thirty years ago Nottingham would’ve been a great place to be – Munich would’ve been a better place to be, of course, because Forest would have just been crowned Champions of Europe.  You know, back when you really had to be a Champion to qualify for the competition.

There’s been lots of reminiscing around the internet which I’ve been keeping tabs on – sadly being of a certain age I have no recollection at all of those legendary events, although of course have become as familiar as one can with them in retrospect from videos and stories from my elders.  It’s certainly a story worth telling, I reckon!

I’m sure you’ve seen numerous pieces yourselves, but my favourite by far has been Gary Roe’s five part recollection of the Annesley Reds and their tour to Munich.  Released over five days in installments over on LTLF, it’s made essential daily reading for me – incase you haven’t already caught it, then I’ve provided a link below – a great account!

• Part one
• Part two
• Part three
• Part four
• Part five

Hats off to you, Gary – a thoroughly enjoyable read!  There is also an interesting alternative account on LTLF courtesy of ‘Me Owd’ whose general recounts of past glories or players I would recommend reading too.  You can find this by clicking here.

Whilst we lose ourselves in misty reminisces of glory, we should also spare a thought to the awful news that Nottingham lad and Forest fan Lance Corporal Kieron Hill of the Mercian Regiment was killed in the Helmand Province, Afghanistan on 28th May.  Kieron leaves behind two brothers, one of whom is in the Forest academy, another on the books of neighbours Notts County.  I’m sure you’ll all join me in offering condolences to his family and friends.  Rest in Peace, Kieron.

Thanks to a spectacular finish from Wade Elliott was all it took to send Burnley to Premier League delirium this afternoon.  Indeed, a bit more composure (and less heroic blocks from Blades defenders) could’ve made it more comfortable for the Clarets.

Owen Coyle’s dark horses have gone the distance and won promotion – having watched the game I don’t think the Blades can have too many complaints.  Whilst they have a chip on their shoulder about the referee he didn’t do much wrong today – indeed, it was quite disappointing to see the Sheffield side resort to diving and pleading for handballs and generally acting like Warnock was in charge again.

So we get to resume our recently rekindled rivalry with the Blades next season, whilst Burnley will be seeking to emulate Stoke and Hull in confounding the pundits and somehow retaining their Premier League status.  Watching the game made me nostalgic and full of regret that instead of making permanent the signing of Robbie Blake, we ended up with David Johnson.

Congratulations to Burnley, certainly we saw how deadly they can be (and indeed how rubbish we can be!) last season, and commisserations to Sheffield United who don’t seem to fare well in Play Off finals – knowing all too well how much it hurts to go out in the semi-finals I can’t imagine the heartache a fan goes through losing at Wembley.

There is now but one opponent to be decided after yesterday’s glibly titled ‘Survival Sunday.’  An off-target Gareth Barry strike deflected off Damien Duff to give Aston Villa the only goal of the game, thus ensuring results elsewhere didn’t matter – the Toon Army were guaranteed a shambolic march into the Championship along with Middlesbrough, who lost to West Ham.  Hull and Sunderland breathed a sigh of relief as Newcastle’s fall meant their own defeats to Manchester United and Chelsea didn’t really matter.

It’s hard not to be taken up by the national amusement at the fall of the North East ‘giants’ – the media love to point their cameras at overweight shirtless Geordies – and there were plenty on show in floods of tears at Villa Park yesterday.  Certainly years of fundamental mismanagement have taken their toll, and provided the Championship with a fixture that everyone is looking out for.

Whether Mike Ashley will try again to cut his losses and sell the increasingly less valuable monkey on his back, whether Shearer – the latest ‘messiah’ the Magpies have turned to – will stay to try to lead the side to promotion, is very unclear.  Certainly from the top, to the management to hapless players on the pitch, Newcastle certain earn their tag as a national laughing stock in football.

The Villa fans summed it up rather well with this slightly cruel, but well observed banner:

However, I can’t quite revel in too much joy over it – certainly I have little sympathy either.  If ever there was a club that could use a healthy dose of reality it is Newcastle United – certainly they will get it, indeed, a season or more in the Championship might reaffirm their self-stylings as ‘a big club’ – because games against them will be treated akin to cup finals by many of us mere minnows in The Championship.

It will require a degree of resilience, passion and endeavour for them to succeed – and on current showings, they don’t seem to have much of that going for them.  Of course, some degree of wholesale personnel changes will be taking place – it will be certainly be interesting to observe their progress, and I’m not too two-faced to admit that I’m really looking forward to a trip to St. James’ Park next season.

Scunthorpe were celebrating too yesterday, after triumphing in a thrilling play off final against Millwall, scoring the winning goal with only five minutes remaining having been 1-0 up, then level, then 2-1 down.  Big congratulations to the Iron, who showed great resilience to eventually get past the Lions.  Poor Gary Alexander must be kicking himself after scoring twice for the London side before missing a sitter at 2-2 that would surely have won Millwall promotion.

The only business left to be decided is whether it is Sheffield United or Burnley who remain in the Championship.  I’m not exactly a fan of either team so it’s a tricky one to state a preference over, although I do greatly admire Owen Coyles work at Burnley I can’t quite get out of my head the numerous unpleasant trips I’ve had to Turf Moor, and well, all of us have a healthy dislike of Sheffield United don’t we?  I think this is as close to a ‘don’t care’ game as I’ve found so far at the end of this season.

Whilst the clamour for new signing rumours shows no sign of abatement, some splendid news came from Forest today.  Midfielder Chris Cohen has signed a well-earned new contract which will keep him at the City Ground until 2013.  Naturally I’m very pleased that he has decided to stick around, after a well-deserved player of the season award, and it also bodes well for wheels being in motion in the background to build the squad we need to be competitive in this league.

Congratulations, Chris – it’s great to have you signed up for a while again.

Rumours gather apace but with little substance so far – some quarters are suggesting signings have been made, but are being kept quiet for no apparent reason, Dele Adebola, David McGoldrick and the hitherto not-linked-with-us Paul McKenna are being whispered as ‘done deals’ – I’m afraid I can’t offer any insight into the accuracy of these utterances.  Marcus Hahnemann and Dexter Blackstock have been pigeon-holed into the ’still talking to’ category.

Those are the more prevalent ones – if I troubled to list all the names I’d heard lately then it would take a considerably longer time to write this post which I’m not really prepared to do!  Whatever is happening backstage at the City Ground they’re keeping it quiet – I guess if signings have been made or are about to be then we’ll have to wait ’til after the bank holiday now to find out for definite.

There’s also the usual degree of unhealthy obsession with our neighbaa’s on the message boards, some degree of affrontment from some quarters that former Reds legend Johnny Metgod is taking a role as a coach there, personally that doesn’t really bother me.  Also that Pride Park appears to have become Gay Pride Park for the day. 

One thing that I’m sure Forest and Derby fans alike can come to an agreement upon is that the defacing of the Brian Clough statue in Nottingham is a disgrace.  The good news is that the incident is being investigated by the Police, and hopefully the culprit (or culprits) will be identified and punished.

Just when you thought you’d heard the last of me ’til we signed somebody or next season arrived, I just found this little gem on YouTube which I wanted to link to incase the thought police remove it at some point.  Courtesy of UltimateJoe1992, we have a compilation of highlights from the season just gone.  Enjoy!

"What're yae talkin' aboot?"... "Fitbae!"*

Along with the good folks at LTLF and Eighteensixtyfive it looks very much like we’ve made good use of our post-season downtime by ensuring Forest romp home in The Sun’s poll trying to determine the best team ever.  Competitions like this are fraught with problems, not least the non-comparable nature of the sport we watch today compared with that of the 70s or 80s.  I suspect the general Merseyside avoidance of The Sun might also have helped!

Imagine how long Kenny Burns or Larry Lloyd would last with a modern referee or linesman, equally, imagine what Ronaldo or Rooney would make of one of their more ’sturdy’ challenges with a referee from the past looking on nonplussed as United’s modern day nancy boys rolled around on the floor probably with some justification for once in their life.  It does make me feel old actually to think that Pearcey might struggle with modern rules somewhat – and I watched him for many a year!

Anyway, I digress from rumour mongering.  Apparently Swansea have had a six-figure fee accepted for Paul Anderson by Liverpool.  This has naturally unleashed panic and fear amongst Forest fans, who assume that the Forest powers-that-be are sat idly by whilst the Swans pounce for the lad.  I imagine Forest are in fact going about their business more quietly, much as they did when he chose us over Swansea as a loan destination.  That’s if Billy wants to sign him of course – although less than £1m seems like a bargain to me!

And if a former-Mansfield defender is good enough for the sheep botherers, then clearly we need one as well – being linked with former Stag Alex-John Baptiste – although this former Stags man actually managed to move up in the leagues rather than ending up at another non-league side.  He’s had stints at Crewe and most recently Blackpool.  At 23 there’s time for development – not as exciting as the continued rumours of Rob Jones, who had a storming game against Celtic recently.

Meanwhile, rumours of the reserves being scrapped (what I have heard is that they are being withdrawn from the badly organised reserve league – and will be playing a series of friendlies instead, so not quite the same).  These rumours are linked to those that Pembo might be on his way.  I wouldn’t be surprised, it’s not unusual for the ‘old guard’ to make way under a new regime at a club.  I’d be sad to see Pembo go after he manfully caretook us into a better run under Davies, but let’s be honest, it’s not exactly the end of the world.

The other news is the England World Cup bid for 2018 which is underway, and pits us against the Sheep and Leicester.  They’d need to add further seats to their lego grounds, whereas we’d need to build our own new lego ground.  I have a nasty feeling that may be what happens, and rather alarmingly whilst I still retain immeasurable fondness for the City Ground and don’t want to leave it on most levels, I can start to see benefits in having improved facilities.  Damn, that almost sounds positive.. must remedy that over the summer!

So a surprising amount to talk about!  We get to find out who will be departing us from Burnley and Sheffield United (since I predicted the semis so well, my money will be on Burnley to attrition their way through an unentertaining final, possibly on penalties), and also who will be joining us from Millwall or Scunthorpe.  I would prefer Scunny to come up, but can’t see past a fairly comfortable win for the Lions on this occasion.  So I think Millwall and Blades fans will be those we’re welcoming next season, neither of ‘em my favourites, but still!

So there we have it – I imagine the message boards will continue to be awash with outlandish rumours, with the odd nugget of wisdom within them, and lots of panicking over other clubs being linked with half-baked people who might vaguely fit a position we need someone for.  I really really don’t much like this phase of the season – at least in the January transfer window we have games to distract us from the shit rumours!  Ho hum!  Should I hear anything I feel worth repeating I’ll pass it on, otherwise, enjoy the summer!

* tenuous photo/caption! Couldn’t think of anything else!

You know it makes sense – we’ve been catching up with Manchester United over the last day or so apparently, let’s win it for Cloughie!

Click the link here, then click on the vote now button.