Student of Modern Football
20/01/05 | by James Scott-Warren

Life has never been easy for the modern day Forest fan, save for the season finished a magnificent third in the Premiership. Unfortunately now, with the Clough era well behind us, we appear to have become the butt of our own (and other’s) jokes. While in this day and age there are many hellish places to have to live in – Derby for example – I believe shared student accommodation – with other die-hard football fans – is among the worse. From the Saturday afternoon question of "Did Forest play this weekend?" to the taunts of the one Derby fan here – I imagine the rest are still too ashamed – football has made my life a living nightmare.

I am unfortunately shackled with two Liverpool fans, two Man Utd fans, a Villa supporter, a Spurs supporter, Wolves fan and even a wayward Stockport County fan. It seems that everywhere I turn there is another face eager to point out that Forest's local derby will soon be against Mansfield or even worse “the-lot-from-over-the-Trent”. It’s even got to the stage where the good for nothing Spurs fan even takes to wearing their body-builder style skin-tight shirt (believe me it’s not pretty), and company are taking bets on when, where to and for how much Reidy and/or Dawson are going to waving goodbye to the City Ground. 

This is just the tip of the iceberg. The local football stadium seems to be taunting the unwary Forest fan – from the “We (heart) U Harty” stickers on the toilet walls (although this does prove they have very lax hygiene policies) to the equally out-of-date, and if I remember, wrong, graffiti proudly displaying “Blades 4 Forest 2” again showing that cleanliness is lost on the infidel, but also just how many have to write down the score to remind themselves.

However, there are moments that keep the Reds part of my heart beating – moments when the Forest gets his own back on those who have made his life a misery. Perhaps this is the up side of living in shared accommodation where supporters of nearly every team can be found, although committees are in consultation to have a separate block for County fans of all persuasions to avoid contamination. We have the gloriously stereotypical Man Utd glory supporter from, this is too perfect, Cheltenham (although he was born in Milton Keynes, but on second hand that makes it better). We then have the Norwich fan who I like to constantly remind of Green’s ‘moment’ last season along with the Nigel Worthington quote on the fact he left Green from the team for a few matches and he “hasn’t looked back since”. On top of this there is the hyper-drive to find a supporter of any team we beat: West Ham, Wolves, Reading, QPR x 2, Stoke – just listing them makes me warm inside. My latest fun is to point out that Forest have a longer cup run than Liverpool – shortly before running as two large scousers attack.

Unfortunately, I fear the worst is yet to come – we are still in the transfer window, and Forest still have a small relegation (bad word) problem to come to terms with and a manager that, at least to this Red, is far from perfect for the epic job ahead. Still, the good news is both going to university and living near League One teams means seeing the mighty Forest may become cheaper as of next August. And that’s the Wolves fan's 20p Riedy sweepstake money lost as we past the confirmation time of 8:30 on the 20th – there’s always tomorrow.