Why Nottingham Forest?

Come on glyn we are off to see the stags tonight...“ Who we playing dad?‟ Nottingham Forest . Its sandy pates testimonial .It was the 4th september 1978 and forest beat mansfield 1-6 at field mill in front of 7000 supporters of which probably a third were from Trentside I was 12 years old at the time , 13 in the october , My football knowledge had been guided basically by listenening to  my dad and his mates so all i really knew was Mansfield Town Football club ,who i loved to go and see at their ground Field mill .Field mill to me was a couldron of noise and odd tobacco smells which although were unpleasant to most , to me they were the smell of excitment , in the 1976/7 season we watched the stags win promotion from the old div 3 up to div 2 , now known as the championship.The town was buzzing ..teams like spurs , bolton stoke and sheffield utd would be visiting , exciting times ahead ? .
Exciting times indeed on their first game of the new season 20th august 1977 ,Mansfield played stoke city , swathes of fans made their way down from the potteries to see peter Shilton and the famous Stoke City stuff little old mansfield town. Before the game had kicked off the town had been smashed up , and at one point from our standing position in the lower West stand (now known as the Ian Greaves stand) we had a great view of maybe 150 stokies running over to the North stand trying to prove the vocal locals wrong with their ‟You‛ll never take the north stand ” chant ....and i don‛t think they did if my memory serves right ? a rather large police horse and a few baton wealding coppers put them on their heels back to their quarry lane mob. Mansfield won 2-1 who would have thought it ?The rest of the season saw mixed results , with the highlights of a 3-3 home draw with spurs which was shown as the main game on itvs star soccer. The inevitable happened and the yellows were relegated along with hull city and Blackpool.
 ..the mansfield fans were in good voice , My dad let me stand in the North stand with my mate jim as it was a friendly , i loved the banter that was sang from the north stand to opposing fans ,it was somewhere i wanted to be now i was growing up ! “Brian Clough and Peter Taylor ” ones a puff and ones a sailer ,i Wasn‛t sure why i was singing it , but i was and it was great laugh . Then all of the fans in red and white started to sing together “AND ITS NOTTINGHAM FOREST >>>NOTTINGHAM FOREST FC were by far the greatest team ..” it was a amazing sound and gave me goosepimples on my goosepimples ,this was a red and white army and i wanted to be in the middle of it.
As i said forest won 6-1 and life went on, i was very interested in the team up the road they were.. after all the league Champions , and runners up the following season , I remember watching Trevor Francis scoring that now famous header in the european cup final against Malmo in the Olympic stadium in Munich ..ironically i watched that game in my uncles house in DERBY, how fitting. Whilst making new friends at my new comprehensive school i latched on to a lad who lived in a local village that neighboured mine but was on the main A614 Ollerton to nottingham road ,He supported Nottingham forest and whilst at school used to tell me of the games he had  been too ..even down to going to the European Cup final in munich..I wanted some of that so , he asked his mum and dad if he could bring along a school mate Glyn ......It was arranged i was off to see the european champions .
Now this is something that really gets my goat and if you are going to take your child to his first match ,please please please make it memorable for them apart from the game at stags my first few visits to the city ground are very hazy, in fact my recollections of certain parts could be just dreams but i seem to remember being in the east stand which is now the Executive stand . stood near the front on a box ? forest were playing Manchester City we won 2-1 and francis scored ....who knows !what i do know is that the whole day from arriving at the Ground walking around it seeing twenty odd thousand instead of 6 thousand , the marvellous colours of red and white everywhere , The famous Trent Bridge Cricket ground opposite the chippy we qued at for what seemed a lifetime was just breathtaking, Burger Vans , Traffic and people everywhere ‟Programmes ” get ya programmes it was a sound i was going to become frequent to..Maybe as some say i should still be a Mansfield Town fan ?... well i am still a mansfield fan ,id love nothing more than to see the yellows winining every week ..but something happened when i stepped into the Football designed stadia of the City Ground ...my heart was stolen and a love affair began with my team Nottingham Forest ....(click the link please ).....................to be continued.   http://youtu.be/EZp_PwWgrUI