The saga comes to an end as the Annesley Reds hope to be celebrating in Munich, thirty years ago tonight…
By now a good contingent from Nottingham would be set for the game after parking up motor bikes, caravettes and even the odd pushbike if Tony Delaney hadn’t sold it for beer money. We entered the ground and I took particular care to fold my ticket stub and save it for posterity. We got our first look at the stadium on a match day. The Olympic Stadium could hold 80,000. We knew it wasn’t going to be full, but the Forest end was pretty near to capacity, a great sight of flags and banners waving, bringing colour to the place apart from the lush green playing surface. To our right were the seats and then I panned around the rest of the ground and the Malmo presence wasn’t anywhere near ours. We made our way down the terracing to a good vantage point, as near middle as was comfortable.
After all the build-up, the big day has arrived for the Annesley Reds. How will they pass the last day in Munich before the European Cup Final? We’ll give you one guess…
Wednesday morning we awoke and planned the day. Teada and Stuart were off to the station to meet Bronc (Roy Lane), his brother and Dad and some others from Annesley, and then we planned to go to the Englishcer Gardens for a leisurely pint before the match. Bronc’s dad Alan was a staunch Forest fan and made the trip with his sons Bronc (our leader on the domestic front) and young Steven who was soon to be a staunch fan like the elders. Mick Haskard and Bob Topliss, who also made the trip, had been supporters from the 1960s and their claim to fame was to be pictured in the crowd during the ‘Gillies Out’ campaign.
Two days’ traveling sees the intrepid Annesley Reds arrive in Munich where they are about to experience some local culture.
I think it was pot luck finding our digs. We parked up and soon found the small hotel; nothing pretty, nothing luxurious, but at a fiver a night, that was for us.
In Part One, the Annesley Reds were nearly thwarted by an over-heating Ford Escort before they even reached Folkestone. How would the car cope with the sweltering Autobahn on the way to the European Cup Final?
About to leave English soil again on the quest for European glory, but this was the big ‘un! At Folkestone I was a bit puzzled. We were going on a Hovercraft; clear enough, but were we taking the cars on? Now that puzzled me. The fact was I was thinking the hovercraft was still in the stages as I had seen on a 1960s BBC TV Tomorrow’s World programme. Bloody hell, these crafts are big, I dreaded what happens when the big fan packs up over the Channel.
In the run-up to the 30th anniversary of Forest’s European Cup triumph of 1979, Gary Roe recounts the epic journey of the Annesley Reds to the Olympiastadion. (Read the whole series and other memories here.)
The season was over for most, but our adventures were just about to begin. We had to get to Munich and it wasn’t like it was a car trip there and back in a day. Official trips were being advertised from £70 to £400. We had endured the train journey to Cologne and didn’t fancy the idea. A few days would be OK, get there in good time and not have to rush, so after our last Sunday League game for Annesley WAFC I parked my football bag in the corner and we had an Extraordinary Annesley Reds meeting. All eyes looked towards Stephen ‘Ruben’ Beardsley.
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