So you want to be a Forest fan, huh?
01/09/03 | by Alex Walker

You've recently been looking for a new hobby ever since your local dominoes club was moved to Thursday nights to make way for the ladies' oil painting classes at the civic centre and now clashes with Ground Force. You've been considering Bingo and Bowls, but one day, while trying to solve a particularly nasty Times crossword clue, your newspaper slips from your grasp and lands on the living room floor with the Sports section facing up. As you pick it up to return to four across, your eye is drawn to yesterday's football scores and you notice that your local side won. You pause for a second, then glance at the league table to discover that their fortunes have been high recently.

You spend a few days dwelling on it during those quiet moments in your potting shed, until one morning you pluck up the courage to confront your wife. You put down your marmalade on toast, stroke your beard nervously then say: "Dear, I'm thinking about becoming a Forest fan."

She is shocked and proceeds to drop her cup, cracking it and spilling hot tea all over the breakfast table. Fortunately the best crockery is safely locked away in the dresser, but the table cloth will need a good soak in warm water.

When your good lady has attended to this duty, you approach the subject again. She has her reservations, mostly about her husband turning from a respected member of society into a lager-drinking hooligan thus damaging the attendance of her weekly coffee mornings, but after some persuasion, she agrees.

So what next? You've reached the crossroads in your life and embarked on the journey to becoming a true red, but which way to turn?

Where to sit?

If you're going to do this properly you have to throw yourself in at the deep end. It's no good being an armchair fan these days - you have to be committed to the cause and willing to get behind the team in person. So after deciding which game to attend, you must then weigh up the options of which part of the City Ground to sit in.

The Trent End seems popular, but that must have something to do with the low prices of the tickets. A well-to-do chap like yourself won't want to lower himself to sitting with the plebs. The stand is packed with families, tight-arses and (God forbid!) students.

Still, the Trent End is renowned for its good atmosphere and you had been planning on putting your choirboy training into practice with a good sing-song during the games to show your support. That A Block is supposed to be good for singing, but you seem to recall distant memories of tutting disapprovingly when the ape-like residents of that particular area were featured on the evening news for some despicable act of misbehavior. No, the A Block sounds too rough for you.

So where now? Well the Upper Bridgford stand would be all right if spitting on the away fans were your thing, but in the end you opt for the Brian Clough stand. It may be more pricey than other parts of the ground, but the views are good and there will always be plenty of well-informed people around you to whom you can pertain valuable information about your new team.

Who to go with?

You don't fancy going to the match on your own so you buy two tickets, but who should you give the other one too? Your first thought is your darling wife, but then you remember her initial reaction at your announcement of your support. Besides, you don't want her cramping your style asking embarrassing questions like "which way are Forest shooting?" and "what does 'offside' mean?" (questions which may well be made all the more embarrassing because the chances are you won't know the answers yourself).

None of your friends are big football fans so you're in a bit of a pickle until you remember that football is traditionally a father and son activity. You give your lad a call and ask him if he will accompany you to the game. You promise to pay his train fare back from arts college in Sussex and although football isn't really his bag, he agrees when you tell him how much this pursuit means to you, deciding to humour you lest he puts his inheritance at risk.

What to wear?

Of course, the replica kit is par for the course, but it is hard to justify spending £40 on a single item of clothing - especially when it means you will have to sacrifice this month's addition to your Begerac video collection. But as a true fan, you know that this money will help the club so you take the plunge.

In order to look like a proper fan you consider getting the name of a player printed on the back of your shirt, but until you've been to a few games you won't know who your favourite squad members are. Besides, you've been doing a bit of research and it seems that the club has been selling a lot of players recently and you don't want to be walking around with the name of Aston Villa's latest signing on your back.

Do I need anything else?

While you're in the club shop you decide to pick up a few other accessories: a scarf with the club's colours, a Forest mug, a team poster for your study, and one of those replica kits commemorating the club's 1979/80 European Cup success in order to appear as if you've been supporting the team for donkey's years.

What should I know?

You also pick up a Nottingham Forest history book and spend the following few nights reading up on the club's past. You find out about the club's birth from a struggling hockey team, that the City Ground acquired its name from Nottingham being given city status a hundred years ago, how the club hired a young manager named Brian Clough following his sacking by Leeds United after just 44 days and then went on to win the League Championship in their first season since promotion.

You also go the city library and check the newspaper archives to brush up on recent history. You learn that the names Irving Scholar and Julian Markham are dirty words on the banks of the Trent, David Platt was felt by all to be a useless excuse for a manager, and that everyone hates Derby County and Leicester City aren't shy to let it be known.

You discover the club's academy is renowned for producing some of the best young players in the country and it's former director is now the manager of the first team, the club was saved on the brink of financial ruin a few years ago by rich business man and Forest supporter Nigel Doughty who is now chairman, and that the club has been languishing in the First Division for just over four years now since being relegated in 1999 following a troubled and eventful decade.

What about the players?

You know that knowledge of the players is going to be essential, particularly so that you know who to shout abuse at from the stands (that is what football fans spend most of their time doing, as far as you can gather, and your therapist recommends that it will help you take out a bit of your pent-up frustration you hold for your interfering mother-in-law).

You decide that it is about time you figured out how that modem thingy on the computer you use to do the accounts works. After a few hours of mucking about with cables and driver disks, you get yourself logged onto the information superhighway and check out a few Forest websites to investigate their player profiles sections.

You deduce that Darren Ward is a fine shot-stopper but is less than sound when it comes to dealing with crosses, Michael Dawson is one of the best defenders in the country despite his young years while his team-mate Des Walker is still turning back the clock playing well into his late thirties.

Andy Reid is Forest's most talented midfielder and lives up to the hype, unlike Gareth Williams who often fails to use his great natural ability to full extent. Eion Jess has not made a great impact on the side since joining last year, but Eugen Bopp is full of European promise.

Up front, David Johnson and Marlon Harewood are a formidable partnership, both getting over 20 goals last season. Harewood bursts through defenses in a haphazard manner and is a fans' favourite, while Johnson has natural goal-scoring ability.

How do the songs go?

While on the web, you find a site that lists Forest songs and chants. Most of the chants concern local rivals Derby County and often their unholy love for sheep, although there are some original ones in there. You're sure you've got a vinyl copy of the Righteous Brothers 'You've Lost That Loving Feeling' somewhere around the house so you'll need to practice the first verse. You also remember receiving a copy of Paul McCartney's 'Mull of Kintyre' as an unwanted Christmas present one year and there is a Forest version of that in which the mist if rolling in from the Trent and your desire is always to be at the City Ground, not some lumpy bit of Scotland.

Anything else I'll need to know before it's too late?

Well it might be advisable to take your own half-time snack as the food on offer at the ground is over-priced and usually undercooked, more like an expensive way of catching E Coli than nourishment.

You can spare a coupled of quid for a matchday programme to read during the dull parts of the game, or you could save some money and buy a fanzine instead to keep up to speed on what the fans have got to say for themselves.

Pre- and post-match pints can be supped at many locations around the ground, so you can pick from the Trent Bridge Inn, Southbank bar, the Larwood & Voce, Hubble Bubble, Casa and many others.

Parking is a nightmare on matchdays so unfortunately that means you'll have to use public transport to get to and from the game.

Other than that, there's not a great deal more you need to know that you won't find out at the game. Nothing can prepare you for the delight or heartache that a Forest game can put your through, but one thing is for sure: after following the Reds for a short while, you'll never be able to go back to dominoes club, even if they do move it back to Tuesdays.