lost that loving feeling - Things can only get better

The phrase – and of course the song that leaps to mind upon its utterance – has been synonymous with Forest for over a decade. As our formerly fine football club plummets to ever-lower depths we consoled ourselves with thoughts that surely the horrifying descent much reach a natural trough. Somebody said it to me on the day of the Macclesfield game, going on to predict "a good battering" of the lowly league two side; an opportunity to kick-start our disappointing start to the season, a chance to finally give a side “a good tonking” that apparently we owe someone for some reason best known to the people who suggest such a thing.

Well, how wrong that was – and indeed, how wrong the idea that we can’t get any worse. I wonder if the players think that things will naturally get better so they don't need to actually try. Maybe that would explain why this season so far we’ve failed to keep a clean sheet, why we’ve just lost four games on the bounce to such footballing greats as Walsall, Swindon, Scunthorpe and now, unthinkably, Macclesfield! We started the season earning the unsavoury record of being the only former European Cup winner to reach the third tier of their domestic league, and now we find ourselves officially at our lowest ebb in our entire history.

We need to learn, people, that no matter how bad things get – they CAN get worse, and if recent trends for us poor beleaguered Forest fans are to continue then the chances are they will. I really can’t quite put my finger on the root cause of the problem. Of course, there’s on-the-field solutions – midfield not creating enough, strikers not scoring enough, defence not solid enough judging by the goals conceded – but (and this is another dreaded phrase) ‘on paper’ our squad should be more than capable of more than holding its own in this league.

Having considered all of the above very carefully, I can only surmise that our demise is by unnatural means – or more specifically, supernatural means. We are cursed, people. There is no other explanation for the bizarre and depressing story of Nottingham Forest. Somewhere we have vexed a malign spirit which is contributing to our accelerated plummet into obscurity. Barry Fry once urinated over the pitch at Birmingham to help lift a curse – I’m not sure it did them any good, but what harm could an exorcism or two at the City Ground do? Maybe we also need to rebalance the energy flows around the place – clear out some of the negative energy and allow more positive vibes to permeate.

Some kind of goat sacrifice to appease the heathen Gods would surely make more interesting half-time entertainment than a bunch of lasses kicking a ball nowhere near the crossbar; maybe a Wicker Man in the main stand car park would be sufficient to alleviate these overbearing pressures that infiltrate seemingly all levels of the Nottingham Forest hierarchy from Doughty to the lowly supporters. Perhaps we should fully honour our recently-deceased manager with a statue at the gates to the place that he put on the map?

So I think rather than lay into Gareth Taylor or Gary Megson or whoever else you have chosen for your scapegoat, maybe we should be enlisting the help of an exorcist and a feng shui consultant. Sure, you can mock me if you like, I won’t really be offended, because I am of course writing half in jest – but rather than saying that “things can only get better”, I would suggest saying “considering everything, what harm can it do?” I don’t believe in ghosts, curses or many other things, but to be honest I’m getting into such a state of desperation that I’m prepared to consider anything to try to revive our ailing fortunes, so please, any of you who have abandoned your lucky pre-match rituals, please resurrect them!