Now then,

This is a story and it’s a very old story. I’ll tell it to you as it was told to me and this might just be the first time it was written down.

It was a very long time ago when football was a different sport entirely. It was played by hard men as the leather ball hurt when it hit you and the shirts had buttons on them. The goalkeeper wore the same colours as the team and was allowed to handle the ball anywhere in his own half. It was a different game then.

A father taking his son to the cup final at Crystal Palace. Ted Widdowson and his son Charlie walking from Sneinton into the city together. Ted was a lace-maker and Charlie was in his last year of school. Ted and Charlie were Forest through and through. It was hard to be Forest in Nottingham back then. County were the older team, the gentleman’s team, the team that had won the cup four years earlier. Ted’s father had watched Forest and so did Ted, and now Charlie was in love with that team.

They walked to the Railway Station in Carrington Street. It was a year before the Midland Station would be opened. Charlie was carrying a red wooden rattle, wearing a red and blue scarf and a woollen hat knitted by his mother. Ted was holding a brown paper package containing their snap – cheese cobs made that morning. At first they were two red dots walking along in hushed silence. Then they turned a corner and two more fans were with them. Another corner and they were in a group of ten. Finally, gradually they were on the crest of waves in a tide of red and blue heading for the station.

Grinning, Charlie looked over at his father who smiled with pride back at him. Charlie twirled his rattle with excitement and the noise raised the other fans up a pace or two. It had been a drab League season for the Forest, but the cup run had lifted them all so much. They’d beaten Grimsby and Gainsborough Trinity in the first two rounds with ease. In the Third Round, away at West Brom, the run had seemed over. They were two nil down at half time. Then Frank Forman, Charlie Richards and Alf Spooner had pounced to take them into the next round. As Ted could not get to away games then, he had read these game about later, rather than experiencing them first hand.

Frank Forman was Charlie’s favourite player. He was a defender who usually played on the right. He’d joined Forest from Derby five years earlier. He’d go on to make 9 appearances for England and become one of only four players to Captain England whilst playing for Forest. He had a brother Fred, who also played for Forest and England, they were Precursors of the Charltons and later, much later, the Nevilles. Brothers in arms, winning honours for England.

Back then, following the club to away games was hard. It involved long walks, horse drawn trams and steam trains. Ted could rarely afford to take Charlie to away games. They missed both semi-finals against Southampton. In the first, at Bramall Lane, 30,000 fans watched a close fought one all draw. The second was controversial. It was a bitterly cold day and a blizzard was raging. 16,200 fans watched the game in a blizzard which eventually the referee was forced to stop. It seemed a replay was certain, but even as the blizzard raged, the match was restarted. In the 88th and 89th minutes, Tom McInnes and Charlie Richards scored to give Forest a 2-0 victory. Southampton’s goalkeeper claimed his eyes were choked with snow, but the FA overruled their protests.

And so this bright morning. The twenty sixth of April 1898. Charlie and his Pa boarded one of ten special trains heading down to Crystal Palace. Forest were the underdogs in the cup final. THE cup final, back then, there was only one. Their opposition were local rivals Derby County FC. Derby boasted some outstanding players such as John and Archie Goodall and the famous Steve Bloomer, whose shot was so hard, it could knock opposing goalkeepers to their knees. Derby’s journey to the final had been much harder than Forest’s and less controversial. They had beaten Wolves, Villa, Liverpool and Everton. The newspapers had not given Forest a chance.

Sitting in his railway carriage, watching the steam dissipate above the chugging engine, eating a penny worth of toffees his Pa had bought for him, Charlie just knew the Reds would win.

The week before Forest had played Derby in the league. They’d lost 5-0, including a Bloomer hat-trick. But Charlie knew what Forest manager, Harry Hallam had been up to. Trick them into thinking it was an easy ride. Send out a team minus eight first team regulars. Today was the time for a counter-punch.

From the station, Charlie drank pop, whilst his Pa drank beer and then they joined the throng walking to Crystal Palace. Two distinct groups emerged from the throng, one in Forest’s colours of Red shirts and blue shorts, the other in white and black. The accents spoken were barely distinguishable between the two sets of fans. Ted paid a penny for a program then the pair entered the ground, opposite the pavilion. There were more than 62,000 people there and Charlie stood open mouthed at the vast expanse of green pitch that separated them.

Red and blue and white and black and a sprawling mass of green. Fans singing now, some shouting, some rattling wooden rattles, some just standing in awe of everything in front of them. Singing and shouting and craving. Charlie’s Pa said nothing, he just squeezed Charlie’s hand.

They sang and sang and sang. Then the teams ran out onto the pitch and pride swelled within Charlie. Lord Roseberry, the former Prime Minister was introduced to the players and Charlie watched as he shook hands with Frank Forman.

The atmosphere in the ground was like nothing Charlie had ever experienced before. He watched Forest’s captain John McPherson win the toss and shouted his heart out for the Reds as the game kicked off. The Forest team was:
Dan Allsop, Archie Ritchie, Adam Scott, Frank Forman (c) John McPherson, Willie Wragg, Tom McInnes, Charlie Richards ,Len Benbow, Arthur Capes, Alf Spouncer

The kick off heightened the rivalry between the fans and voices swelled. In an early attack, Methven was lucky to get in the way of Capes’s shot, after Mclnnes and Richards had dallied unnecessarily.

One of the Forest team. Spouncer, had missed most of the Pre-Final training sessions, being unable to get time off from his work, but it was Spouncer now who played the leading role in the build-up to the first goal after nineteen minutes. Benbow ran down the centre and knocked a fine pass out to Spouncer on the left. The winger was cut down by Cox near the by-line. and Wragg’s free-kick went to Capes whose shot went through the defensive wall and beat Fryer in goal. Charlie and Ted, together as one, jumped in the air, fists aloft. 1-0 to Forest.

Derby started to get back into the game after the goal, and in the thirty-first minute Steve Bloomer headed a good goal from Leiper’s free-kick, the ball hitting the crossbar and bouncing down behind Forest’s keeper, Allsop. Forest battled as the interval approached and scored when Fryer parried Richards’ shot and Capes closed in to shoot steadily along the ground and into the goal. 2-1 to Forest.

Half time was jubilant. All the worries that Father and son had shared weeks before were banished. Victory seemed assured to the team in red and blue.

As the second half began, Wragg, injured in the first half, pulled a muscle in his leg, and had to move out to the left wing. This was the usual place to place an injured player. Capes retreated into midfield, and Spouncer had to go inside. Although they were missing a player. Forest hit a third goal four minutes from time. Boag headed out from a corner-kick but McPherson caught the rebound from the Derby keeper and shot into the back of the net.

Play had almost all been in Derby’s favour in the second half. but the strong Forest defence held out. Allsop headed away Cox’s drive and McPherson saved a certain goal.

The game ended. In some kind of euphoria, Charlie was aware that he was hugging his father, The first hug they had shared since Charlie’s young childhood and one which they would not share again. They stood together as Forest picked up the cup and trotted around the ground saluting their five thousand fans that remained.

The Forest team stayed in London for the weekend as Ted and Charlie took the train home, but on the Monday, the City was waiting for them. As the team stepped off the train, it seemed that the whole city was bathed in red and blue. Notts County’s Chairman filled the cup with Champagne for them, just as the Forest Chairman had done for County, four years before. The team did a tour of the City, Charlie and Ted sat aloft a lamplight waving at the team they adored. From that moment on Forest became the dominant football team in Nottingham, even more so as they moved to their new City Ground alongside the River Trent in the following year.

Charlie died on July 1st 1916. He was torn down by a German machine gun on the Somme Battlefield, a member of the 1st battalion Sherwood Foresters that died on the attack on Gommecourt. On the day before he died, he remembered this grand day out.

Ted remembered it too as he read the telegram to his wife and drew down the blinds.

I’ll see thee.