NOTTINGHAM FOREST

‘The River Trent is lovely; I know because I have walked on it for eighteen years.’

BRIAN HOWARD CLOUGH 21 March 1935 to 20 September 2004

‘And he was Forest too – every sinew of him.’

FourFourTwo magazine (see chapter on Derby)

Note to self. Take piss out of Forest fans, as promised to Derby fans.

After football, my big passion is history. So the first time we went to an away game at Forest I suggested to the boys that we get there early so we could visit the castle. A suggestion that was met with a sort of puzzled silence, as though someone had suggested to Prince Charles that he make his own cup of tea.

My friends are all intelligent people, but on match days it seems they are not interested in what happened four pints ago, never mind four centuries ago. And I don’t know what I expected when I got there, but there was no Robin Hood and none of the many men who were milling around the station in red shirts were merry. No, they were way through merry, had gone past pissed and were now verging on the feral. They seemed to discuss something, but I don’t think it was history.

Shame really, because Forest is full of it. And they have one of the few team names I am prepared to admit is on a similar level of cool to Crystal Palace. If you can’t have a mighty eagle on your badge, I would happily settle for a stylised tree emerging from a few wavy lines representing the River Trent.

They are a team that claim many firsts. They are definitely the first, and only, football team to emerge from a Shinney team. Shinney was a sort of violent version of hockey,* and in 1865, presumably nursing some injuries, the players had a meeting in a pub and decided that football may be safer. At the same meeting they also decided to order 12 red caps in ‘Garibaldi Red’, which seemed to be the red of choice for many clubs in those days, although quite why so many English clubs were inspired by the Camicie Rosse, led by a man determined to create a liberal, progressive, united Italy, is a mystery (I really do love history).

Forest played their first match on 22 March 1866, against … Notts County. Which makes it arguably the first ever local derby. The first reported use of a referee’s whistle was at a Forest game in 1868. Before that referees had waved a white flag to indicate a foul which wasn’t very efficient but did keep seagulls off their sandwiches. They were the first team to use shin pads, presumably left over from the Shinney; and it’s also likely that the first ever crossbars and goal nets were used at a Forest game.†

All that is all very interesting (no, seriously, it is, I’m not being sarcastic); but the more discerning among you will have already guessed the real reason I’ve been looking forward to writing this chapter: Brian Clough.

My mum had little interest in football (other than that mystifying love for Tommy Docherty) but she hated Clough, ‘the cocky little shit’. I loved him. Still do. I so wish I’d met him but I’m also glad I didn’t, because for every story that ends in hilarity, there is one that ends with a player hanging from a coat-peg.

Very few people live up to their own hype. He did, even when he was failing. Clough didn’t go into big successful clubs and win them trophies, he went into small mediocre clubs and won them trophies. As we’ve seen, the only time he did go into a big successful club, he was sacked after 44 days at Leeds United.

As a striker for Middlesbrough and Sunderland he scored pretty much a goal a game until 1962, when the injury that eventually ended his career left him a bitter and broken young man. He could never bear to be around injured players, even at the height of his managerial career.

That career started in Hartlepool, where he teamed up for the first time with Peter Taylor and took a tiny club to their first ever promotion. But not before falling out with the chairman several times. Then they took Derby County from the Second Division to the League title in five seasons. And left after falling out with the chairman. There’s a theme developing here. A brief and inexplicable spell at Brighton was followed by that 44 days at Leeds, where they fell out with the chairman, the players, the media and most of Yorkshire.

But it was what they did at Forest that was most remarkable. When they took over in 1975, Forest were 13th in the table. In 1980, they won the European Cup. For the second year running.

I’ve already told you about one of his very many legendary TV appearances in the chapter about Leeds. The last time he appeared on TV as a manager was not legendary. It was in 1993, moments after they had been relegated from the Premier League. He was a pale shadow of himself and it was very difficult to watch.

But if Clough at the end was tragic, the rest was glorious, marvellous. He was a lifelong socialist, which suited his bolshie character. He was funny, sarcastic, disrespectful, unpredictable and irrational. He teased, cajoled and coached team after team of decent players to ridiculous achievements. He had a temper and was unforgiving of disloyalty. There were ugly sides to his character, for sure. But by God, the football his teams played was magical.

Why You Shouldn’t Support Them

■ They sacked Brian Clough. Yes, I know I said that about Derby.

■ When Forest beat Derby in the 1898 FA Cup final, they borrowed Derby’s shirts because they showed up better in the photograph. That’s an obscure reason for disliking them both.*

■ The tree on their badge is quite cool but it needs an eagle in it.