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Nottingham Forest's 20 questions.
What was your first game? Hard to say after this long, I had attended a few games with my father and brother in the 1965/66 season. But my first full season as a Forest fan was 1966/67, it started with a 2-1 loss to Stoke, I was 7-years-old and it was Forest’s best season in many years, finishing second to Manchester United. It went rapidly downhill for the next 10 years.
Describe the most memorable and worst game you've seen and why? Forest v Derby, 27/08/1977, we had just been promoted, we had won the first two games against Everton and Bristol City, Derby at the City Ground was our third game and they were still a good side. We hadn’t played them competitively for five years, since they had won the league and we had been relegated. Nobody fancied us, but we played them off the field to win 3-0, we knew then it was going to be a good season, we just didn’t realise how good.
The worst has to be this season’s trip to Pride Park, we were spineless and deserved to get trounced 3-0, Joe Kinnear should have resigned immediately after that performance.
Who do you consider as your current local rivals, and why? Derby County. It always has been and always will be, no matter what Notts County think. I’m not sure why it is, after all Notts are only a few hundred yards away and most people assume it must be them. I can only assume it goes back to the 1898 F.A.Cup final when we beat Derby against all the odds, they were a much bigger team than us back then – it would be similar to Rotherham beating Manchester United in the F.A. Cup final these days.
Who are the best and worst players you have seen? In a Forest shirt it has to be Ian Storey-Moore and John Robertson for the best and Andrea Silenzi for the worst. In general it would have to be George Best for the best and Kevin Muscat (nothing more than a talentless thug) for the worst.
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How did you fare last season? Poorly. Flirted with relegation, sacked a perfectly good manager, employed Joe Kinnear, who did get us away from trouble, and finished safely. Mind you, it’s a lot worse this season…
If Nottingham Forest were a TV personality, who would it be and why? Graham Norton, once up there at the very top, now slowly disappearing in to obscurity after his move to the BBC.
How do you feel about Reid & Dawson leaving? Happy, they both wanted out and it was affecting their performances, and we desperately need the cash.
£8million is a lot of money, however your a lot in debt, whats more important to forest fans. Sorting the debt or splashing out on the team? A bit of both, we know we have to sort out the debt problem and £8m goes a long way to solving that problem, but at the same time you just can’t remove two good players from the squad without some sort of replacement, so some of the money needs to go back in to improve the team.
And apart from a cheeky bid for our keeper Mike Pollitt, do you have any targets? We have been chasing West Brom defender Darren Moore, someone Megson knows well. But we have just received news that we have signed Portsmouth defender John Curtis on a free, so I guess we Moore is no longer a target.
Who would you want in? Unrealistically, John Terry and Thierry Henry might make a difference to our squad. But more realistically I’d like to see Harewood come back, selling him was a big mistake and we really need someone who can find the back of the net at the moment.
So what do you think of The Millers?
A nice friendly club, who, like us, are struggling to get things together at the moment.
Is your manager barking mad? Hard to tell at the moment. He’s been with us less than a month and so far he’s saying and doing the right things. Only time will tell if he is barking, but he will have a long way to go to match Clough, who was truly barking (and truly a genius).
Are you happy with your Chairman/Backroom staff?
Difficult one this one, he did save us when he bought the club, but has irritated us with his attitude to certain things. This season his ‘We’re serious about promotion, are you?’ advertising campaign to justify his across-the-board price hike for tickets wound everyone up before a game had been played. Now, looking at the league table we all wonder just how serious he was – talk about shooting yourself in the foot. I wonder if he will be so keen to introduce price reductions if we go down…
Difficult one this one, he did save us when he bought the club, but has irritated us with his attitude to certain things. This season his ‘We’re serious about promotion, are you?’ advertising campaign to justify his across-the-board price hike for tickets wound everyone up before a game had been played. Now, looking at the league table we all wonder just how serious he was – talk about shooting yourself in the foot. I wonder if he will be so keen to introduce price reductions if we go down…
Which team do you want to beat the most this season and why?
Derby, it doesn’t matter where in the league we are, Derby are out biggest rivals and beating them always makes for a brighter day,
Derby, it doesn’t matter where in the league we are, Derby are out biggest rivals and beating them always makes for a brighter day,
What sort of line-up can we expect from you?
I’m wondering that myself. What with Reid and Dawson going, Curtis coming in, bust-ups between David Johnson and Gary Megson which could see Johnno going out on loan till the end of the season and another rumoured signing before the weekend, I really don’t have a clue right now.
Predicted score? Forest to win 2-0
Who's going up? Ipswich and Sunderland automatically, Reading or Wigan to win playoffs.
Who's going down? Worryingly it looks like us, Rotherham and Gillingham at the moment. I think we have enough in the club to start changing things and get out of it, In which case Coventry and Plymouth will get sucked in to it.