lost that loving feeling - Season Review 2000/01

I'm sorry to say that I've seen the future of Nottingham Forest; it doesn't look good.

This season was, as Eric Barnes so helpfully pointed out in the pre-season publicity, the key one. Unfortunately this wasn't hype. This season was to decide the club's fate, possibly for a very long time to come.

The situation was this: Forest were amassing huge debts - so much so that Nigel Doughty had to arrange a £6m overdraft with the bank to allow the club to keep paying it's £105,000 wage bill for another 12 months. This meant that we could pretend to be a Premiership club for another season, keep hold of all our best players and make a push for promotion.

But having failed to mount a sustained promotion challenge this season, things will have to change drastically. Doughty made a big gamble in terms of his financial support. All credit to him, as had we earned a Premiership place the club would be able to clear its debts. But now Forest need to take a step back, re-asses their position, cut their losses, and start to build from, if not step one, a very lowly rung on the ladder.

Doughty financed this season on the hope that Forest would be playing top-flight football next season. This is why we wont....

A 6 game unbeaten run at the end of 1999/00 had left the team in good spirits over the summer, as had a successful pre-season trip to the states, and the new season started with an air of optimism, despite the lack of any summer signings other than the average Gary Jones and 3 straight defeats in friendlies back in this country.

The Reds kicked off the season at home to West Brom, Jon Olav Hjelde grabbing the winning goal with less than 15 minutes to go. It was a slightly poor start in terms of quality of play, but a good result over one of the teams that we would be fighting with come the end of the year. As was a draw away at Norwich.

But signs that few lessons had been learned from the previous 12 months started to appear as Forest were first held to a two-two draw, then subjected to an embarrassing home defeat by lowly Darlington in the Worthington Cup.

Meanwhile in the League, things had been looking better with an enthralling 3-2 win at Crystal Palace, a game in which David Platt himself not only played, but netted a goal. But 2 weeks later and less than a month into the new season, many fans seemed to have reached the end of their tether with the manager. Forest found themselves on the end of a 3-0 thrashing at Blackburn, and the only 'support' the fans seemed to be able to offer from the stands was chanting for Stuart Pearce to be made manager.

Platt, who by now must have been used to this abuse, responded by sticking to his guns and producing a number of good results against Sheffield Wednesday, Grimsby and Barnsley. One thing that these games showed us, other than the fact that Forest were capable of producing good football, was how much our away form had improved, as none of these results occurred at the City Ground. This was a much needed improvement from last year's dire travelling. However, the Reds had only won 1 match in 5 games by mid-October, a total which had left them somewhat off the pace in the promotion chase.

But if ever a result was needed to halt this streak, a 5-0 demolition of fellow-contenders Burnley was it. Those who had been shouting the odds against the manager from the stands in previous games would have found it hard to make their voices heard as Bart-Williams (2), Johnson, Rogers and Scimeca all added their name to the score-sheet and the City Ground cheered one of the best performances of the season.

This excellent showing might have been a one-off, but no - Forest won their next 3 games on the run, and lifted themselves right back into the contention for a play-off place. Despite an unfortunate set-back with another home defeat at the hands of Wimbledon in the last minute, Forest kept up their good run and added another 9 points to their total in 3 weeks.

This run seemed to be building up for a crescendo with a game against struggling Huddersfield, that had been re-arranged for the forth time. If Forest won, they could go into one of the automatic promotion spots, a point taking them to third. A capacity City Ground crowd turned up expecting to see a comfortable win, but, be it down to stage fright from Forest or the Terriers re-vival under their new manager, the Reds stumbled at the last fence and lost by 3 goals to 1.

Suddenly, clouds were descending over the Trent again, and two more defeats followed. By this point Forest had lost 3 of the key players that had been involved in their October/November form: Jack Lester and Alan Rogers had both been injured long-term, and Robbie Blake had returned to Bradford after his profitable loan-spell with Forest. Missing these three players would haunt Forest for the rest of the season and by Christmas the creativity they brought to the team was looking a bit thin.

However, Forest hadn't run out of options totally. Another of Platt's loan-signings, Ben Olsen, from Major League outfit DC United was making a name for himself. But he was also to find himself injured and missing a the end-of-season run-in.

In fact the injury list was reaching a comical length. By the time it came to the first round of the FA Cup against Wolves, Platt was forced to blood many of the young players such as Jenas, Freeman, Cooper with mixed results. With many of the first-team players side-lined, the form started to slump and a promotion push was looking a bit fragile.

However, just when heads were starting to drop at the City Ground, the signing of David Johnson from Ipswich lifted them again. The board pushed out the boat to sign the £3m striker in the hope that he would re-create the goals he scored for Ipswich the season before and help boost Forest's promotion push.

But his debut, a 3-0 home defeat at the hands of Crystal Palace, showed that it was too-little-too-late. Johnson looked a class above in his early games, but by this time the team was so bedraggled that he wasn't getting the service and the erratic form continued.

After this game the team were gifted a two week break due to the weather taking it's toll on the game at Crewe. But even after this, the team was unsettled and produced inconsistent results. A great win over Blackburn Rovers was followed shortly by a defeat by an awful Sheffield Wednesday side.

It was this kind of dramatic swinging between the two extremes that saw Forest lose pace with the play-off race. By the time April arrived, Forest had lost to both Watford and Bolton, leaving them with an up-hill struggle over the final leg of the season.

To be fair, they made a good go of it, taking 7 points from 3 games to give them a slim chance of making the top six, Stern John and Marlon Harewood both finding some goals in a spare season for them. But with 3 games left to play, defeats by Wimbledon (A) and Gillingham (H) hammered the nails firmly into Forest's coffin and the team were resigned to a mid-table finish.

11th place has got to be a huge disappointment, especially when at times things were looking very well for the Reds. David Platt commented on the team's failure by saying "the loss of two players with their goal-scoring and creative ability had a major bearing on our progress. Had they stayed fit, I am certain we would have achieved our goal of reaching the play-offs" in reference to Alan Rogers' and Jack Lester's absence for a lot of the season. I would definately agree with the manager's sentiments to some extent, but I would add Olsen and Blake to the list of players that we missed in the second half of the season. Forest's main problem all season has been to provide the two very good strikers we have - David Johnson and Stern John - with chances, and these 4 players are the most creative Forest have had this season.

Another problem that led to Forest's downfall was the lack of consistency. During the good run in October/November, Forest fielded a pretty stable team and this was re-paid in the level of result and performance that was delivered. But once disruption occurred in the side, things became unsettled and Forest failed to establish any kind of form because the players were having to adapt to new formations, positions and team-mates almost every game. This is not a criticism of the manager, as many of the changes were forced upon him by injury and suspension (Forest had the second-to-worst disciplinary record in the division).

In particular, home form has been dire this season. As I mentioned before, on their travels the Red Army were much improved from last season's efforts. But at the City Ground they have dropped a huge amount of points. Despite this, attendances have been up by around 3,000 on average. Numerous players have been quoted saying that they prefer playing away because the reception they get from the fans is better. Perhaps a lack of vocal support and often hostile treatment at the City Ground has knocked the confidence out of the team?

My own feeling is that it is a combination of this, and mistakes in the tactics employed: Forest seem to suit the away game better, especially with a full-fit squad, able to soak up pressure and counter-attack the other team. But when they are playing at home, they often fail to take the game to their opponents in the way needed and sit back too much, waiting for it to come to them. That said, with a fit team, Forest did play well at home and have produced some good results.

On the positive side, Forest have made good progress from last season. This year's battle has been, thankfully, at the right end of the table and the whole team have looked better and displayed much more confidence. 11th position in the league doesn't really reflect the efforts over the whole season fairly, just as last year's 14th flattered the team.

Another encouraging factor that has continued from last season is Forest's excellent youth prospects. A season report of Paul Hart's Under-19s Championship winning season would have made far more cheerful reading, as does the impact youngsters such as Prutton, Foy, Edds, Williams, Roche, Ried have had on the first team. Forest can perhaps be forgiven for certain mistakes over the season considering how many young players have been involved and this area can only improve as they gain more and more experience. A job well done by all at Forest.

The main part of any season review, is the writer's predictions of what will happen the following year. Which brings me back to the 'future of Nottingham Forest' I started with. As I have worked my way through this report, I have come to the conclusion that on the pitch, things aren't all that bad. Next season, if Platt carries on up his learning curve, the young players continue to flourish, and key players stay fit and in form, then there is no reason why Forest can't get promoted. Yes, it will be hard, but this Division is extremely open, and the fact that Forest took 4 points from Preston, who ended the season in the play-off final (surely the most likely way for Forest to gain promotion), shows that it can be done. And with some more creativity in the team, who is to say Forest wouldn't have turned two defeats into two wins and secure the 6 points between them and the play-off zone at the end of this season?

But it is when you look at the wider picture, and what is going on behind-the-scenes at the club, that you see why I opened so pessimistically. While things were going badly on the pitch, they were threatening to become disastrous off.

At the beginning of the season, whispers of Irving Scholar and Julian Markham - two of the men who contributed to Forest's slump into their current standing - taking the club to court had started. By November, this was confirmed. In February, the case between Scholar/Markham and Nigel Doughty began.

The two members of the 'Bridgford' Consortium who had taken over Forest in 1997, argued that Doughty's £12 investment in the club 2 years later had been illegal. With the backing of the club, Doughty won the case, and the prosecution were ordered to pay costs. However, this court case cast a dark shadow over the crucial months of Forest's season, unsettling the players no-doubt, with talk of the club going into liquidation in the weeks before the verdict in April, and tying up Doughty in terms of any further investment he could make into the club.

Thankfully, the reign of Scholar et al seems to be over (chances of the pair mounting a successful appeal against the findings in the original trial are slim, especially as the judge dismissed their case as "completely unnecessary and misconceived"), allowing the club to move on to the next step. However, the damage has been done. Forest still have huge debts to pay off, and a awesome wage bill to bring down. And with the club still languishing in the Nationwide League, the only way to do this is to sell players.

This is where I see the future of the club going. It has become apparent in recent years, that for a football club to survive outside the Premier League play ground, they must make money from transfers. This means that the longer Forest stay in this league, the more of our best players will have to be sold. This is why this, ultimately disappointing, season was so crucial.

In the short term, there is still hope for the Reds for the reasons I mentioned above, but now is the time to realise that Forest are now a First Division club in financial terms as well as league status. Even with the big money of Doughty, Forest aren't going to be in nearly as good a position as we could hope for.

However, I'll finish on a high-note. At least now the club will become stable and the foundations have been laid for a resurrection to glory, in the form of a solid backing and a promising youth system. And with a few choice signings over the summer, and a good season over 2001/02, could make this resurrection sooner rather than later, and I firmly believe that, save some major influence, Forest can go up. It's too early to decide whether they will yet, but I'll spend this summer with the usual hope for August.