lost that loving feeling - Pedigree chumps

There’s an episode of The Simpsons in which Barney, the hopeless drunk, acknowledges his addiction and determines to seek help. He goes to a session of Alcoholics Anonymous, and Homer, being a decent sort, offers to lend moral support and attend the meeting with him. When the pair arrive at the meeting they are spotted by another attendee, Millhouse’s dad, who remarks: "So Homer, I see you’ve finally hit rock bottom." "No way, Van Houten," our hero replies, "I can sink MUCH lower!"

As a Forest fan currently in exile in Croydon, I watched last weekend’s results bleed through on Soccer Saturday with growing frustration. Bad enough that it was 0-0 at half-time, but when the inevitable happened and, twenty minutes later, the final whistle went, I was convinced that this was ‘Rock Bottom’. Fast forward to Tuesday night and it became apparent that Nottingham Forest, like Homer Simpson, were determined to keep striving for new depths.

The questionable merits of England’s second cup competition have been debated ad nauseum and even the most convincing of victories against the mighty Mac’s would have done little to dispel the fear that this season won’t be the glorious walk in the park that many had been predicting since the end of the last campaign. As such it was a lose-lose situation: victory would prove nothing, anything worse, and the doom merchants would have a field day. Nevertheless, victory was the least we expected. How wrong we were.

The pre-season restructuring promised so much: a lot, if not all, of the deadwood was cast aside (Kevin James anyone?), and in their place arrived players with undoubted pedigree. Breckin, Holt, Gino and Curtis have all experienced success at this level at the very least. In Holt and Curtis we had acquired players with Premiership experience. But far from being the feathers in our cap, they could prove to be our Achilles heel.

It can’t have been hard for Megson to attract players of a certain mentality to the club. Two times European Champions competing on the third tier of English professional football – most of the new arrivals probably signed up for a glorious and inevitable promotion campaign, which would serve as an entertaining prelude to the real task of putting us back in the Premiership. Four league games into the new campaign and it is already apparent that it will not be that easy.

If we follow the precedent set by Sheffield Wednesday, as opposed to, say, Manchester City, how many of the ‘big name players' (it’s all relative of course) will become disillusioned and look for an escape route? Even worse, how many will succumb to the Alan Rogers methodology of turning up every week, playing without any passion or commitment (and, in his case, ability), always safe in the knowledge that a contract is a legally binding document and the money will continue to be paid? And most importantly, how many will be rightly ashamed that a club of Nottingham Forest’s stature may be staring down the barrel of a League 2 shaped gun?

We can but hope that everyone at the club will respond to the current adversity and put this season back on track. Until they do...anyone for cricket?