Fluid Forest Fire Four

Saturday 12th March 2022: The City Ground: EFL Championship:
Nottingham Forest vs Reading

Ever since I visited Nottingham for the first ever mixed-gender Triathlon Relay Cup on the banks of the Trent and taking in a T20 Cricket match at Trent Bridge I have always wanted to return to the city for a football game and now my dream is coming true.

With Notts County having dropped into Non-League in recent seasons there was only one choice for where to go to make this football dream a reality, Nottingham Forrest. I had read of their success in the late 1970’s and the 1980’s under the legendary manager Brian Clough and now I am finally visiting the stadium of this historic team, sitting in the stand named after their greatest manager. It was surreal.

Getting to Nottingham was a direct train from Lime Street, that only stopped in Manchester, Stockport, Sheffield and Chesterfield on the way. As a result of all these stops it took 2 and a half hours to get to my destination, it’s quicker for me to get a train to Central London. The train continued on to Norwich though so perhaps I got off easy on the journey and I have the greatest empathy and respect for those who made the full journey, having made that exact journey to visit family at the end of last year.

Thankfully the journey from stadium to station is a lot shorter. You head left out of the station and then just keep going till you meet the main road where you cross the road and turn right. From there you head towards the River Trent and the stadium will appear to your left. The weather was perfect, blue skies and sun as far as the eye could see, on match day so the stadium was doused in sunbeams and completely unmissable.

The City ground is a beautiful stadium from the outside, with the Trent End squeezed onto the edge of the river bank and if it takes even a tiny step back it will fall in. There were Canoeists and Kayakers practising on the Trent as I made my way down the bank road and it was just a gorgeous view. I thought this was a good omen for the hosts at the time and if you’ve read the title of the blog you’ll know this was a good hunch.

Despite arriving in Nottingham with 3 hours till kick-off and with the walk being just a 20minute jaunt, I didn’t actually arrive at the stadium till 90minutes before kick-off. This was because I had to get to Lime Street early in the morning and hadn’t had time for a proper breakfast, so I headed into the city centre to find some food. It was whilst tracking down some much needed lunch that I stumbled upon Nottingham’s best kept secret. Like Manchester, Sheffield and Croydon it is a city with a tram network. Unfortunately the trams are more on the Croydon level of sophistication than the fully developed networks of the other two and as such the network does not extend to the football area of town.

Having found lunch and then completed the 45 minute walk from my lunch spot to the stadium, I picked up a programme from the cash only programme seller as I turned off the bridge and down the bank to the stadium. Next to the programme seller was a scarf merchant, but none of the scarfs (except the obligatory dreadful half and half scarves for the match) were highlighting their recent history as they all depicted the successes of the club’s European glory days in the late70’s under Brian Clough. Having bought my programme I then sneaked round the Trent End, which was plastered top to bottom with memorial plaques to the fans who had witnessed the club’s glory days and are now no longer with us.

The stadium becomes far less picturesque as you turn the corner onto the Brian Clough stand as it backs onto a vast car park. In this car park is where you will find the club shop in a converted shipping container. From the shop I bought two keyrings, one with the club crest and the other with the City Ground street sign on it, out of respect for a team with such an illustrious history and a ground that I had always wanted to visit.

I was unable to make my customary lap of the stadium as the Bridgford Stand, in which the away fans are located was fenced off so I made a 180-spin and headed back down to the Trent with the intent to head round to the Peter Taylor stand side of the stadium in search of the coaches arrival point. The Trent was just too distracting though and I decided instead to grab a burger from one of the many burger vans on the bank road and enjoy it whilst relaxing on the river bank.

Enjoying my burger a little too much I lost complete track of time and, thinking it was close to kick-off, I headed straight inside once I finished my burger. The steward at the turnstiles was unfailingly helpful and I was glad he was fast with his job as I was rushing to find the loos once I made it inside. Just a quick heads up if you find yourself needing to use the City Ground’s facilities, the cubicles are miniscule so I would advise against using them if you suffer from any level of claustrophobia.

My experience at the food kiosk was a little more stress-free but not necessarily better. I went to the till closest to me and ordered a drink from the lovely young Indian lady manning it. She was not allowed to fullfill my request however as the young Indian lad at the till butted in at this point and insisted on finishing the transaction himself. I apologised to the young lady for her colleagues rudeness before heading into the stand to find my seat.

That seat was spectacularly placed, just 3 rows back from the pitch and smack bang on the halfway line too so I had a great view of the whole pitch. The only problem with it was that it was direct in the path of the sunlight pouring into the stadium and I really wish I had bought my sunglasses with me to the match. This awesome seat was tarnished significantly when my neighbour turned up as he could talk a deaf person into thumping him. He simply would not stop talking all the way upto kick-off when he was mercifully distracted by goings-on on the pitch.

The seat itself was still excellently placed though as I also had excellent views of the stadium’s 2 screens, one down at the Trent End of my stand and the other directly opposite it between the Peter Taylor and Bridgford stands. Above my head between the tiers of the Brian Clough stand was a banner that charted every trophy the club has won in it’s history. The last of those being their League Cup triumph in 1990, though it did have space on it to include future honours and it would have required smaller gaps between the text if they included promotions won on it.

They came into this match looking in good shape to secure another promotion this season as they sat 10th in the table at kick-off just 5 points behind Luton Town in 6th place and they had a game in hand over that rival too. Their goal difference of plus 12, before kick-off, stands them in good stead on this front as does their excellent form. Forest had not lost a single home match in 2022 and had not lost at all since a 2-1 loss to Cardiff on the 31st of January. Steve Cooper’s charges were looking good coming into this match and look a great shout to be playing in the Premier League next season.

The visitors are looking far more likely to be playing in League One next season than anywhere else as Paul Ince’s Reading team come into this match in 21st place in the table. Any visiting fans in denial over how precarious their teams position is only need to look at the fact that they came into this one 8 points adrift of Hull just a place above them and although they are 5 points clear of Derby County that is only due to the 21 point deduction that has been hanging round Derby’s neck all season. Without Derby being in the financial position they are Reading would be nailed on certainties to head down alongside Barnsley and Peterborough.

The visitors form is also abysmal heading into kick off losing their last two matches, one home and one way, to Millwall and Blackpool respectively and a shambolic goal difference of minus 26 for the season. Any of the away fans who had made the trip north in high spirits must have had other things on their mind than the match they were coming to see.

In further bad news for the visitors their hosts came into this one flying high off an FA Cup win against Huddersfield in their previous match that set up a quarter-final tie with their old glory day rivals Liverpool. With this win in their last match Forest named an unchanged team for this match, much to the chagrin of a lady in the row in-front of me who wanted to see her favourite Sam Surridge brought into the starting 11. For the visitors the main talking point among the fans around me was the manager’s inclusion of his son Paul Ince to lead the Royal’s line in this one.

The team sheet for the visitors was put up on a single slide and on it I was glad to see the return of a tradition of my travels, the players in the squad that are missing from the programme. This time it was 2 of the Reading substitutes that had been omitted from the programme squad lists, including their substitute keeper. They had two keepers on the squad list who didn’t make the matchday squad so this felt like a huge oversight for him to be missed off it, even if he is their 4th choice between the sticks.

Forest’s starters all got the screen to themselves as they were announced to rapturous applause from the home supporters. Once the tannoy had finished it’s announcement of the home team’s starting 11 the home fans broke into a chant that reverberated around the stadium like a prayer proclaimed in an ancient church. I could not make out the words of this prayer though as there were thousands of voices and I couldn’t understand the accent of any of them.

That unintelligible chant was the last action before the game kicked off and 17seconds after the match got underway the scores were no longer level. A whipped ball up the right straight from kick-off released Djed Spence into acres of space and his cross into the area landed at the feet of Keinan Davies with his back to goal 6 yards out. He let the ball run across his body then turned and slapped the ball under the despairing dive of Luke Southwood in the Royal’s goal. The fans had barely finished their pre-match chant when the goal went in and the rolling sound from that to the celebrations made it sound like a wave from the Trent had breached the top of the Trent End and flowed onto the pitch and into the stands.

With it having worked so well already for them Forest tried attacking down the right again, but this time the cross by Brennan Johnson evaded the slide of Ryan Yates by inches to deny Forest a second goal in the first 5 minutes. Reading had barely touched the ball early on and looked completely out of their depths in this one, they were wilting in the gorgeous early spring sunlight.

Having it so easy early on made Forest cocky to the point when one of their defenders, I took down the number 24 but he wasn’t even in the squad as it turns out. Whoever it was fluffed a simple defensive pass and dropped it to the feet of the Royal’s Andy Yiadom, but even then the visitors couldn’t work it out. Yiadom was eased off the ball by Davies and Forest cleared. Reading were back again a minute later when they secured a free-kick 35 yards from goal. Tom Ince got a yellow card for complaining to the ref about another incident that had happened seconds earlier. To get a yellow when the ref has just given your team a free-kick is quite the trick and I’m sure the visiting manager was impressed by his son’s exceptional achievement. The freekick was wasted and Forest regained control.

It wasn’t till the 20th minute that they created their next presentable chance. They whipped a freekick from the right straight through the corridor of uncertainty which was just begging to tapped home, but none of the host’s attackers could get the decisive touch. Having wasted this glorious chance Forest finally had to do some defending and in the 26th minute Ethan Horvath in the Forest goal had to finally make a save. It was a corner from the right that forced the save as it was poked goalward from 8 yards out. Horvath got down quickly to his right to stop the ball in it’s tracks and maintain the host’s lead.

Two minutes later Reading gave away another freekick on the right and this one was once again whipped in by the hosts and just begging to be tapped home, but yet again there was no-one there to tap it home and double their lead. Yiadom followed Ince into the book for complaining about the freekick being given to the hosts. It took until the 31st minute for Forest to pick up a booking of their own and it went to Jack Colback for passing the ball to himself off the advertising hoardings after the ref had given a foul against him.

In the 33rd and 34th Ince had two chances. The first after Forest were once again too casual in defence that was curving wide, but Horvath scuttled across to pouch it anyway. The second came after Ince muscled his way into the box before attempting to chip the keeper from wide left of the box at a 6 yard distance. Horvath was able to leap to palm the ball away though and keep things at 1-0 to Forest.

Reading made it a hat-trick of yellows in the 38th minute when Danny Drinkwater joined his teammates for a two-footed tackle on the host’s Brennan Johnson that caught him on the ankles. Drinkwater was lucky to get away with just a yellow, especially when he started complaining to the ref about the yellow. It was the most nailed on yellow I’ve seen for a while so why he was complaining I have not a scoobies.

The visitors took this let-off and the foothold they had managed to create another chance a minute later. Scott Dann cut in from the right hand side and takes a shot at beating Horvath at his near post but the keeper was equal to it and shoved it behind for a corner which the visitors wasted. This corner achieved one thing though as it left the host’s Max Lowe down on the turf unable to move. The physio’s checked him over and decided that he would be unable to finish the game forcing Steve Copper, in the host’s dugout, to make his first decision of the match . He decided to replace Lowe with a midfielder simply known as Cafu, though unfortunately he is not related to the Brazilian Cafu who terrorised opposition teams in Europe from the late 90’s to mid noughties (winning 2 world cups along the way).

Back to today’s match and Reading got in again in the 42nd minute. Once again it came through Ince who tied the defence in knots on the left before serving up a high cross into the centre for Dann to head home for the equaliser. Unfortunately it was just a few inches too high for Dann to get a decent connection with and his header went spiralling over the top.

The match limped from there to half-time as the game had settled far too much after it’s thrilling opening. The hosts had allowed complacency to flood into their play and allowed a listless Reading grow into the half. They had managed to make it the break with a one goal advantage though and with the sun beating down on the pitch it seemed that the football gods were still smiling on Forest. It appeared that Cooper had gone into them at half-time as they emerged long in advance of their visitors for the second half as I moved seat to my right to have a better view of the Trent End to which they were now shooting. I was confident that Forest would be geed up for this half and really turn on the afterburners. I would turn out to be right.

Forest went straight on the attack from kick-off and having wrested control of the ball from their visitors they earnt themselves a corner in the first minute. The delivery dropped to Steve Cook on the edge of the area and he volleyed it agonisingly over the bar. This was a great sign of intent from the hosts though as they looked to turn the screw on their relegation threatened visitors.

That twisted screw seemed to get to Tom Ince in the 48th minute as he started rolling around after being knocked down by the lightest touch from his marker. The host’s captain Joe Worrall was so infuriated by this that he threw the ball straight at Ince’s head to take the freekick the ref had given him. The ref seemed to miss this act from Worrall as he escaped punishment for it. Given how much complaining Ince had been doing all match though it made me laugh. It was even funnier 2minutes later when the Royal’s Michael Morrison went into the book for a soft foul. The host’s resultant freekick was flicked over to the back post where Scott McKenna was millimetres away from heading it home.

The next way that Worrall expressed his frustration at the game was by slapping a volley towards goal in the 54th minute. It flew agonisingly close over the bar but it seemed to sort out Worrall’s frustration, so there’s a silver lining at least. Free of his frustration Worrall arrowed a 60 yard pass up the right touchline to set Cafu in behind the defence and free to close-in on goal, until Morrison recovered to slide in and knock the ball behind. A minute after this it was Spence who got in behind on the right, but his cross was pushed off the line by Southwood.

At this point the game had become so hectic that everytime I looked down to take a note I missed some action on the pitch. I did note down though the point blank shot from Davis that Southwood cleared off the line in the 57th minute. Forest were getting closer though and soon they would reap their rewards for this. Before that though Reading made a change to their personnel as Ovie Ejaria on for Andy Rinomhota. Then Tom Ince tried twice to get himself sent off just after the hour mark as he first tried complaining to the ref again and then he committed a foul just seconds later. Neither worked though and he had to continue playing the game.

The game got a lot harder for Reading to get anything out of in the 62nd minute when Davies scored his second of the match through a beautiful solo move. He picked up the ball on the right side of the box then twisted and turned inside, shook off the attentions of the defenders and wrapped his shot around the forest of legs and in off the left hand post. It was a finish of beauty and the Forest lead was doubled. He would not be given the chance to complete his hat-trick though as he was hooked from action in the 69th minute, to be replaced by Sam Surridge.

The new man on the pitch was soon at the centre of the action as he twisted inside on the left side of the box and went down under contact, but the ref decided that it was a fair challenge and waved play on. The visitors were spooked enough by this and so desperate to get back in the game now they were 2 behind that they made another substitution in the 71st minute. Lucas Joao was the man brought on to replace the departing Drinkwater and the formation was changed to a 4-2-4.

Even this drastic re-jig was no use for the visitors though as the hosts were now in full flow and gained their 3rd goal in the 75th minute, when the ball dropped to Yates on the edge of the box and he rifled it into the top right postage stamp. The Royal’s keeper had no chance with that one, but that wouldn’t stop a couple of his teammates rounding on him for not saving it though.

This was game over for the match as a contest and it got even worse for Reading just 5 minutes later as the host’s netted their 4th of the match. They were threatening everytime they came forward now and were finding so much space on the right that you could park a fleet of Limo’s in it. Xande Silva, who had only been on the pitch for 2 minutes having replaced Johnson, exploited this space to advance on the Reading goal and then flick in a cross that landed on a sixpence and left Surridge with the simplest of tap-ins from 8 yards. It would’ve been the miss of the season if he had messed it up from there, but thankfully for him it was finished with consummate ease.

At this point Reading were struggling to assert any pressure on their hosts who looked like adding their 5th with every attack. Many fans witnessing their team be ripped apart like this would leave before the final whistle, but to their eternal credit the Reading supporters stuck around to cheer their team till the end.

Luckily for those travelling fans their team’s humiliation got no worse in the final 10 minutes as the hosts were unable to add any more goals to the 4 they had already scored. This was partly due to the fact that Forest had to finish the match off a man short after Steve Cook went down in considerable pain in his own area with a minute to go. The attention of the physios was not enough to get him back on his feet, so it was left to the St. John’s ambulance crew at the ground to tend to him and there was even a stretcher brought round to carry him round the pitch and down the tunnel. To the great relief of the home fans he was able to manage without the stretcher and instead was able to hobble round the pitch with the help of a medic either side of him for support. It’s never nice to see a player leave the pitch in this way, but much better than seeing them leave on a stretcher.

Little of note occurred in the 5 added minutes at the end of the match, other than Keinan Davies deservedly being named Man of the Match for his brace that set Forest on their way to a simple win. A win that set them up very well for the run-in to the end of the season and a potential play-off run after the regular season is over. It also left the home fans feeling very good about their upcoming match against Liverpool in the FA Cup.

In the time between the game and me writing this blog they have lost that game to Liverpool and accrued a number of games in hand over the teams above them and now sit just 3 points off the playoffs with 3 games in hand over Blackburn Rovers in 6th place as they enter the international break. Blackburn and their fellow Championship playoff dwellers Sheffield United are both teams that I will be looking to visit before the end of the season. With only a little over a month left in the season and other pressures in my life precluding the possibility of attending more midweek matches anytime soon whether I will manage to make games at Ewood Park and Bramall Lane before time beats me is a major unknown.

What I do know though is that I will not get to either of them before the 9th of April as I have other games planned for both this weekend and the 2nd of April at Old Trafford and Stamford Bridge respectively. Before I blog those experiences though I have one last catch up blog to write as I squeezed in one midweek match last week when I visited Everton Women’s Walton Hall Park home for the visit of Chelsea. I had visited the ground twice already, but other circumstances around those days meant I was not in the right headspace to blog them. Third time lucky it is though and my next blog will bring you the story of how it’s not just Everton’s Men’s team that is currently a shambles.