lost that loving feeling - Those were the days

Football used to be simple. At three o’clock on a Saturday afternoon, you would stroll down to the City Ground, take your seat, flick through the programme and watch the mighty Reds. There I would be with my dad and my brother, decked out in the complete Forest strip eagerly awaiting the action, with no cares in the world… except whether I was going to get a burger out of my Dad. It’s been a while since I felt that way, and even longer since I wore the entire strip.

Last season I sat behind a family of four in the Upper Trent. Despite secretly despising my luck to be seated behind them as it seriously restricted my use of, let's say, industrial language, it did remind me of how football used to be. These kids had no worries in the world; all they did was come to the games and watch. The only real time they looked worried all season was when one of them was shouted at by his mum for chanting: “The referee’s a wanker!”

Trying to hold back the fits of laughter I became engulfed in, I realized that to these kids football was just that, football. Where did these days go?

Now football consists of PLCs, multi-million pound transfers, huge wages, massive signing-on fees and Bosman transfers. Now when I walk into the City Ground, instead of worrying about my next burger, worries about money fill my head. You may just argue that as you get older, money becomes more important and also a hinderence.

This is very true as I remember when I was a kid, a quid represented a load of cash. However, in football terms it is not as simple as that. Football is certainly not the same game it was when I started watching Forest in the eighties. Gone are the terraces and the hustle and bustle, replaced by consumer-friendly all seater stadiums.

Money has always been a part of football. If there were no money, clubs would not be able to support themselves and would simply fade away. I’m old enough to remember the time when Brian Clough got banned from the touchline and heavily fined for hitting a couple of fans that ran onto the pitch. My Dad reassured me that Cloughie had plenty of money and not to worry about it. Back then I actually thought Clough owned the club, and it all seemed so easy. However, it is now evidently clear that managers do not have complete control over their football clubs and are now no more than employees; just like the players they manage.

If they are not in control, then who is?

You may look at the men in the suits, the chairmen, the majority shareholders etc… But it has become clear this season at Forest that the bank and money are in charge. At the beginning of the season Forest put their entire squad up for sale, in the need to create some much needed cash to please the bank manager. This has led to a number of senior players to leave the club in order to take some pressure off the wage bill. The sale of Jermaine Jenas to Newcastle was also needed to provide some much needed capital, and when Paul Hart attempted to bring Jay Boothroyd to the City Ground on loan, he found that the league had placed a transfer embargo on the club for not paying Ipswich the full transfer fee for David Johnson.

Of course the bank managers are only doing their jobs, and as football fans we should not ask that our clubs receive special treatment; as our clubs, just like any other businesses, have to answer to the bank. But the question has to be asked… how has our game become so entwined with the moneymen? After all, football is a game.

When whispers became heard earlier in the season that Forest could be facing bankruptcy, I, like many other Forest fans, became very worried that our beloved club would just vanish off the earth. One of the things that was said by many in an attempt to soothe the worries of many fans, was by saying that other clubs were in the same position.

This only served to worry me more.

How can so many clubs be facing bleak financial futures when our game is so popular and full of money? Many clubs including Forest became PLCs in order to create more money to finance the running of the club. The problem with this is that football clubs do not represent good businesses. All good businessmen prefer not to take risks but football is full of them. In the business world, signing a ten million pound striker would almost guarantee success, but we all know that in the football world it is not that simple. We only have to look as far as the signing of David Johnson to see this.

Johnno was bought with the desire that we would score us the goals to get us back to the Premiership. This in itself represented a huge risk. Johnson had hardly played for Ipswich that season, but was now expected to quickly adjust back to the rigors of the First Division and find the net on a regular basis. Not only did he fail he score on a regular basis, we did not get promotion to the Premiership and the club were left having to cope with a player on big wages, and having to deal with repercussions of paying such a huge fee that we couldn’t actually afford.

Now the club has realized that it could no longer afford to throw money away in such a fashion and have taken steps to rectify the situation. Perhaps the club has finally recognized that it needs to be run like a business, and although I hate linking the football and business worlds together, perhaps we should take a breath or reality and realize that these are the times we live in.

If the club were not to adapt to the changing times then we would be left behind. With the money of Nigel Doughty, the club's immediate future is guaranteed. However, it should be remembered that it was only five years ago that the last major take-over took place, but now we find our club having to undertake such extensive money saving procedures. From this the club must learn from the mistakes that have been made in the past, and accept that at the moment we are a First Division club and that our finances should reflect this.

Forest’s ultimate goal is promotion to the Premiership, and you may argue that to do this you need to buy Premiership players, who are on Premiership wages. However, this season we have seen that there is an alternative. Just take a look at our academy and you can see the huge pool of talent that we have at our disposal. Already players like David Prutton, Gareth Williams, Andy Reid, Marlon Harewood, Eugen Bopp, and Chris Doig have emerged with many more to come. This season we have seen how good these players are, and how at times they have shown that they are as good as anything else in this league. The club’s future should be based on this emerging talent with secure finances in place to help out if it is needed.

With the new thinking and structure in place, Forest have a platform that they can build upon for future seasons and maybe, just maybe, life as a Forest fan can become simple again.