It’s taken relegation to kick the club into action
18/05/05 | by Alan Fisher

I wasn’t looking forward to getting Alex’s email requesting some thoughts about the season we’ve just witnessed, I must admit – but arrive it has. Fortunately for those of you, like me, who don’t want to relive what we’ve been put through in any great detail, the idea is to merely skim the surface of the season, not to pick through so many rather distasteful bones.

The season started with a lot of draws, I remember that. I can remember a few performances of merit, Ipswich at home springs to mind. As the draws kept coming, so did the promises from Kinnear, who was just beginning a process of manufacturing himself into the perfect scapegoat for the board by repeatedly making false claims in the media. Barry Roche showed himself up again in a capitulation to Coventry which was our first non-draw of the league, and it took the death of the great Brian Clough to bring our first win against West Ham at the City Ground five games later.

But ultimately nine wins is fully deserving of relegation – and really our fate was somewhat sealed once we entered the relegation zone. Whilst it was clear to everyone on the planet that the increasingly erratic and media-shy Kinnear wasn’t up to the job, the board delayed their decision to dispense with his services (suspiciously amicably at the time, which again has only served to make Mark Arthur look foolish after relegation was confirmed and he launched a tirade at Kinnear) until the incoming Gary Megson didn’t have a chance to reverse it thanks to an unfit squad full of damaging cliques and piss artists.

In between all that, of course, Mick Harford and Des Walker stepped to the helm and a cup win at QPR looked like they might revive our fortunes, but the inevitable happened, and ironically it was again at QPR that our relegation was confirmed. It came down to our last game of the season to give the Forest faithful some kind of entertainment – and in a macabre way too. As a collective we really did derive quite a bit of pleasure in bringing Gillingham down to League One with us! Perhaps memories of Andy Hessenthaler’s rugby tackle on Andy Reid was fresh in mind, or perhaps after all our suffering it was just nice – on a day when we were under no pressure – to see someone else going through a microcosm of our season in just one game!

Even before relegation was confirmed I stated on this site that we perhaps needed the shock of League One to bring about the clear-out we need. And certainly Megson has not been backward in coming forward on this score – he has cleared out a chunk of players whose contracts were up, and has made five players available for transfer who he wants rid of. The board too have been reasonably quick off the blocks too – season ticket prices frozen for two years (gee, thanks! They were already expensive for the second tier of English football, let alone the third!).

Hopefully the clear-out, combined with the frozen prices, will keep the supporters coming, and hopefully Nigel Doughty is starting to realise some of his mistakes with previous dealings and will make up for them. Announcing that short-term debts are to be cleared – assuming he can wangle it – is certainly a step in the right direction, and not cutting the wage bill is also a sign of genuine ambition to at least reattain our status in the second tier of English football!

I’m tempted to write a letter on behalf of the fans to the club before next season starts, and in huge letters at the top can you guess what I’m going to use as a heading?

WE’RE SERIOUS ABOUT PROMOTION, ARE YOU?

They better bloody had be this time.