Forest are staying up. Just say that out loud. Three whole weeks since Reading’s Shane Long scored two headed goals to make it impossible for Norwich to catch us, it still feels good to know that the Reds have another season of Championship football to look forward to.

Even with swine flu and recession to worry about, there haven’t been many more depressing prospects in the city of Nottingham this year than the thought of Forest being relegated again. If any Charlton, Southampton or Norwich fans happen to read this, I wish could offer you some solace, but I’m afraid there’s no getting away from how horrible League One actually is. Prepare to see your team’s name written out of the press like something from Nineteen Eighty-Four. Prepare to visit grounds that make Birmingham New Street Station appear a welcome and sanitary place. Prepare for the ignominy of being made favourites for the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy.

The 2008/09 season has largely been a tortuous one, with humiliation and heartbreak at the hands of rivals near and far (Wolves, Burnley… Derby!), but when you look at the bigger picture, we’ve done okay! We’ve finished seven points clear of the drop and only one point behind the Sheep. People who were expecting us to push for successive promotions were deluding themselves. Avoiding relegation was the only aim for this season and we should be grateful for having done it reasonably comfortably. And don’t forget how fortunate we were to be promoted in the first place. If it had gone to the wire again this year it might have been a bit too much to ask of Lady Luck to point her pearly whites in our direction for a second year running…

I’m pleased to see that Billy Davies realises how big an achievement staying up this year was. Hauling an inexperienced and injury-ravaged side out of the bottom three is no mean feat and he’s right to tell us to “make sure we do not get too excited” about next season. On LTLF we pictured Billy with the caption “I’m serious about consolidation, are you?” Obviously it was a tongue-in-cheek gag, but we really do need to be serious about consolidation next year – no silly business like sacking the manager if we aren’t in the play-off zone. Theoretically we gained seven places this year. If we do the same next time round we’ll be in twelfth. Two more seasons developing at that rate and we’re going up as Champions in 2012. And if we are to ever return to the Premiership, I can see it taking that long.

On the whole Billy Davies has won me round. I wasn’t adverse to his appointment, per se, but I wasn’t thrilled by it either. At the time I felt Colin Calderwood deserved the January transfer window to try and sort out his own problems, that the sacking was a knee-jerk reaction to the Doncaster defeat and that Billy was not the man to get the masses flocking back to the City Ground in the same week that Derby County hired Nigel Clough as their manager.

But two things in particular have impressed me with Billy Davies in the last month or so. Firstly, his handling of the media had been shrewd, not only in keeping feet attached to ground, but also in siding with the fans at being disgusted by the Burnley debacle, and the way he made his row with the board over transfer policy public in order to make some crucial loan signings.

The second thing is that Forest are now are a team who finally know how to win games. Even if we haven’t been playing that well, we’ve been getting vital points in circumstances that previously have seen us capitulate. We came from behind to win against Bristol and Southampton, and we took six priceless points from play-off contenders Preston and Reading. When Forest go behind now, heads don’t immediately drop. There’s a belief that they can get back into matches and – as the gruelling rearguard actions at Sheffield United and Blackpool showed – we can also grind out results. This is the step forward that has gained us seven places this year.

Hopefully the confidence in their ability to win games will remain a key feature of Billy Davies’ Nottingham Forest and I’ll see you on the pitch in 2012!

This article was originally written for BallsMania and appears in the new issue out today.