It is a shame because we did have some excellent ideas for future issues of the magazine. But let’s not get too downhearted. After all, word quickly reached the Forest dressing room that we were calling it a day – and the team’s recent improvement is purely down to a huge weight being lifted from their shoulders in that they no longer have to worry about us taking the piss out of them!
And for those of you who did love the magazine and our mission to put the fun back into Forest, here’s a flavour of what we had up our sleeves for future issues. As Jim Bowen of Bullseye fame would say, “Look at what you could have won...”
1) Megson reaction
Needless to say, a great deal of space in issue five would have been devoted to the departure of Gary Megson. Now it’s fair to say that the ginger whinger’s decision to clear off came as little surprise. Indeed, the night of his final game in charge, the dismal 3-0 defeat away at Oldham, even saw vociferous chants of “Megson out” at an event completely unconnected with football - a gig by the Manchester band Elbow at Nottingham venue Rock City!
One article we had had planned was the exclusive revelation that even Forest fans’ pets were starting to express their contempt for Meggo – as can be seen
in this picture!Meanwhile, another feature we had planned was a piece consoling the Nottingham Evening Post over their spat with Meggo. The Post, of course, were up in arms earlier in the season when he vowed that he wouldn’t give them interviews anymore after the ‘I have no idea’-gate scandal.
However, they shouldn’t have felt like Meggo was singling them out as he also refused to give an interview to LTLF, declining to even respond to the letter we sent to him asking for half an hour of his time!
Shame, because after Brian Clough’s legendary comment that Meggo the player “couldn’t trap a bag of cement”, we had been planning to take along a bag and see if he’d be willing to try and dispel the theory! We’ll now never know…
Last but by no means least, another Meggo-themed feature that we had planned was another exclusive revelation – this time that the ginger whinger had undertaken his first foray onto the silver screen. Well, sort of…
Basically, there’s a very funny website that lets you take a short clip from a Bollywood film and add your own subtitles. And one day, a certain LTLF associate decided, presumably because his employers don’t give him enough to do, to cast the then-Forest manager as a leading man!
The priceless results of our man’s handiwork can be seen at the following link…
http://www.grapheine.com/bombaytv/playuk.php?id=601221
2) Lookalike
Gary Megson… and a galapagos turtle.
3) Free gift!
It was often suggested that the type of football Forest played under Megson was like watching paint dry. We thought Reds fans deserved to know if this really was the case – and so we actually looked into how much it would cost to have each copy of the magazine come with a free, cover-mounted sachet of paint!
Sadly, the cost in the end was prohibitive… and when the ginger whinger decided to bugger off, Forest began playing ‘proper football’ again anyway. Hurrah!
4) Interviews
Though Megson snubbed our request for a chat, we did have a number of excellent interviews in the pipeline for future issues.
One interviewee on our list was a former Forest player who scored one of the most vital goals of the Reds’ forays into Europe in the late 70s and early 80s. Yet unlike the likes of John McGovern and Kenny Burns, Colin Barratt is someone you hardly ever hear about in the media these days. It was a goal from the mild-mannered left-back though that gave Forest a 2-0 cushion to take into the second leg of their European Cup first round clash with Liverpool in 1978. And unbelievably, Barratt is now working in the Southwell area as a painter and decorator. Quite amazing really that you can hire a member of one of the Reds’ greatest ever sides to paint your bathroom should you feel so inclined!
Meanwhile, another interviewee we had lined up was the widow of Tommy Wilson – the man who scored the winning goal for Forest in the 1959 FA Cup final. Mrs Wilson is actually a former neighbour of Essex Red and LTLF associate Dan Hawkins – and we felt that a look back at her husband’s career would be a timely reminder of the forgotten heroes of that 1959 team.
Indeed, are there any Forest fans under the age of 50 who can actually name any members of the Reds side that trumphed against Luton Town at Wembley despite having to play most of the final with ten men?
Great as it was, the success achieved by Forest in more recent years seems to have cast a shadow so long that we forget about anything achieved in the years BC (Before Clough). In stark contrast, Newcastle United’s last real domestic trophy was the FA Cup in 1955 – and numerous members of that team, such as Jackie Milburn and Bob Stokoe, are still worshipped like Gods up in Geordieland to this day.
Finally, another mini-interview we would have run in issue five was a brief chat that that a member of the LTLF team had with – of all people – Dave from the cockney pop duo Chas n Dave!
Chas n Dave are of course renowned for being big Spurs fans – so on bumping into Dave, our man couldn’t resist asking him whether he thought £5m for Andy Reid had, in hindsight, been a bit of a waste of money. “You could say that,” he mused. “But five million’s fuck all for a football team these days.” Ladies and gentleman – you simply don’t get this sort of exclusive anywhere else!
5) Platt spoof
Any Reds fans who have read the national footy magazine FourFourTwo recently will know that it includes a monthly column on tactics by the popular former Forest manager David Platt. Quite frankly, this is a bit like getting Prince Philip to write a column about international diplomacy. And as part of LTLF’s spoof section ‘The News’, we had planned to do a parody version of Platty’s column in which he gives his top tips on how to get a team promoted into the Premiership. (“First of all, you spend £5 million on three useless Italians…”)
6) Statue fund cancelled!
Also in ‘The News’, we were going to run a spoof story about the Brian Clough Statue Fund being knocked on the head, due to the discovery that a statue of the Master Manager already actually exists. Yes, I refer to the ‘tribute’ to the great man that can be found in McDonalds on Radcliffe Road, a few minutes’ walk from the City Ground. For anyone who hasn’t seen this, it’s basically a small bust of Clough located underneath a plastic dome in the middle of one of the tables. Naff isn’t the word...
7) Kris Commons wins Fifty-fifty shocker!
And for another item for ‘The News’, we were going to run a story about Kris Commons winning Forest’s half-time ‘Fifty-Fifty’ prize draw. The punchline here would have been a suggestion that it was the first time Commons had even entered into, let alone won, a fifty-fifty challenge!
God we’re funny…
8) It’s a cartoon, Jim. But not as we know it!
In issues two, three and four, LTLF ran a series of excellent cartoons by illustrator David Whyte – each a spoof of a different TV programme. Inspired by the signing of Sammy ‘Clingon’, issue five’s Whyte masterpiece was set to be a spoof of Star Trek. Given that the Reds at the time were spending most matches hoofing the ball in the air, the strapline – inspired by the Firm’s 80s pop hit ‘Star Trekkin’ – was going to be “Always kicking upwards ‘cos we don’t like the turf!”
9) Spoof album covers
On a similar theme to David Whyte’s cartoons, we had considered a new regular series of spoof album covers starring Forest players. Inspired by the area of Nottingham where many of the team are said to live, the first in this series, parodying a well known album by US hip hop legends NWA, was going to be titled Straight Outta Compton Acres. It was set to feature Eugene Bopp, Nicky Southall and others pulling their best b-boy poses in front of their nice detached houses. Mo’ money, bitch!
10) Garden of Eaden
Purely for the sake of a good pun, this was to be a spoof gardening column by the Reds’ very own Nicky Eaden. See, you’re probably glad we decided to pack in doing the magazine after all..!