Another transfer window slams shut. The cheque book sits untouched on Nigel Doughty’s desk. And after the summer’s spree, that’s perhaps unsurprising. Nicky Shorey’s loan to Fulham is frustrating. Martin O’Neill was clearly content to see him playing elsewhere for the rest of the season, but if Shorey harbours an ambition to represent his country again, Fulham may offer a better option. It will be interesting to see how frequently he starts for Roy Hodgson’s side.

Read the rest of this article »

Football’s a funny old game. If you’re old enough to remember ‘The Saint and Greavsie’, then you’ll know where the popularisation of that particular stock phrase originated. It wasn’t a great show in all honesty, but was as good as it got in an era when TV punditry was primarily about humour, albeit of the cheesy, Tarbuckesque variety, rather than slick Sky’s every-angle-covered gizmo-fest.

Read the rest of this article »

December is traditionally a time for reflection – a chance to assess triumphs and failings as the year winds down to its end. A new one waits in the wings, filled with the apparent possibility that we can address those failings and conjure new triumphs; but now is a time for totting up scores.

It doesn’t work like that in football though, does it? The season doesn’t begin in January and end in December; nothing’s ever won before Christmas, so the old adage goes. Which, for Forest supporters, is a bit of a shame when you think about it.

Read the rest of this article »

Now that we won’t be hosting Peterborough United in round four of the Carling Cup, I thoroughly recommend you try and get to the Playhouse on Wednesday October 28th to catch Tim Minchin. Looking like a younger, ginger-haired brother of Robert Smith from The Cure, the Australian pianist/comedian’s material isn’t easily pigeon-holed; I’d say he’s a cross between Ricky Gervais, Eddie Izzard and Victoria Wood, as unlikely as that probably sounds. And howlingly funny.

You may be wondering why I’m telling you this. Bear with me. Don’t worry – I’m not a Posh fan trying to offload a couple of tickets so I can make it up to Blackburn. It’s just that I happened to see Minchin at last year’s Edinburgh Festival, and particularly recall a number in which he debunks the whole ‘soul-mate’ thing.

Read the rest of this article »

Legal expressions, even those employed by the F.A., can sound so quaint. Nottingham Forest (and the other lot) are accused of “failing to control their players”, a charge that sounds like it should refer to parents and their unruly children. You have to remind yourself that these are grown men being talked about. And Robbie Savage.

Read the rest of this article »

Nottingham – or the half of it that follows Forest at least – acts like it owns Brian Clough. His appropriately larger than life statue gazes towards Slab Square, while the monument to Robin Hood, that other legend synonymous with the city, sits tucked away at the foot of the castle walls, nowhere near as prominent.

Forest supporters watching The Damned United, the film adaptation – to be released on DVD at the end of this month– of David Peace’s book of the same name, might puzzle over a story centred on Clough that bears no reference to the club whatsoever. Just as we must often face the discovery that a new girlfriend or boyfriend brings with them a history, so it can be with our heroes. Clough arrived at the City Ground in January 1975 having enjoyed tremendous success already with Derby. That he would trump those achievements during his eighteen years in charge of Forest explains both the statue and the feeling of ownership, but it is with Clough’s disastrous and unsavoury forty-four day tenure at Leeds United in between that Peace concerns himself.

Read the rest of this article »