Monday, 27 January 2014

.......will play No6 preston or Nottingham forest

So forest have drawn either Fulham or our Nigel's Sheffield United in round five of the world famous FA cup ......but first there is the small matter of a fourth round replay against a very resolute Preston North End at Deepdale which at the moment is scheduled for Wednesday the 5th of February,The last time forest travelled to ribbleton in the fa cup was Jan 2011 when Anderson and Chambers put us through after going one down,this game was like all the rest of games you get to see in the North West ....yes it was dire and now its been chosen for TV by BT sport there isnt exactly going to be a full stadium or masses of trickies as preston is a mare for a evening 19:45 kick off and maybe a 10pm finish if pens are to decide the game..
Personally I think Preston will spring a bit of a surprise on the Garibaldi reds and I believe it could go to the dreaded penalty shoot out. Although the reds are better at pens than England with a not to bad a record ..I remember being at white hart lane which was also in this competition when teddy sheringham missed for spurs in 1996 sending the reds through ....Ive still got the bruises on my leg from falling through the seat as we went mental .
Back to the present, and if we do manage to beat the lillywhites it would be nice for a trip to craven cottage as I've never seen a game there its one I seemed to have missed from the 80 odd grounds I've visited , Id also fancy us to get a result if a full team was fielded ,would have been nice to get a picture with wacko jacko too but apparently his statue has beat it ..(..no pun intended) , but similarly to the reds Fulham need to dispatch Sheffield United who if won ,could be bad news for us ,as a reunion with our Nigel would  allow  him to continue his fine record of getting a good result against us.Although it wouldn't hurt as much now hes not with the sheep. What I do know though is the games are coming thick and fast now and a cup run could be just what #nffc need , not just for the glory but for the whole squad to keep match fitness for what is going to be a very very exciting last part of the season ....especially if a couple of new faces come in ,which was looking a bit dodgy until yesterday, but at this moment in time we have just signed the Algerian striker  Rafik Dejebbour  the rather strangely nicknamed ..Terrorist....and Kevin Gomis a defender from nice in France. Fawaz has  come good  yet again and backed us when its mattered even now a couple of names are still a possibility ..only time will tell in the next few hours of the window!! .....so tell yer mam yer mam  to put the champagne on ice ,as we are going to Wembley twice !!!! i hope (Gulps)
please click the link for a our last Preston fa cup memory.

pne v forest facup 1-2

Wednesday, 15 January 2014

Its a prem ground with a prem team....


(Please note this is not a match report but a alternative look at the day)
Once again a twitter meet up was arranged for the Bolton wanderers v Nottingham forest ...myself @mrmonkfish65 @iredjim.(jim scott.). @darren_lees (darren lees) all Blackpool reds jumped on the 1044 train to Manchester on sat 11th january 2014.. on arrival at Manchester deansgate at 11:51..yes deansgate , We decided to meet in Manchester due to Bolton's lack of drinking establishments now they are based at Horwich which is just outside the main town, Anyroads on arrival in the station another group of reds had alighted a north bound train with the same pub .The Deansgate as their destination .. .I didn't recognise 4 of them but one certain lad  i did ..Luke..(@palmer_nffc) now Luke is a very like able lad but hes very famous for being loud and swearing, fact is he'd make chubby brown blush, couldn't believe he'd drunk nearly a crate of fosters already, in fact i berated him for leaving 3 cans on the train. So up to the pub we wander as another red @jimcollingham appears ..well it was great to see Jim has he'd missed most of the season due to a injury so it was his first away game in ages, Jim by the way is the only coat hanger specialist Ive ever met.
The Deansgate pub was actually rather nice with its polished wood floors and coal fire a real friendly old fashioned English ale house , a round of drinks was served and the talk of the Garibaldi reds chances today were discussed and bets which we had placed ,my bet was forest to win 3-1 and henry lansbury first goalscorer...mmm.
@elliott_stanley and his Manchester utd supporting father and brother in law Jim and pete also met up and we had a right good meet.( seems to me there are to many jims in this story).... As we boarded the north bound Blackpool train which was rather full of commuters and trickies we found some travelling reds who rather obligingly offered a few swags of Koppenberg and a reminisce of our European days and the cost of  following clubs away these days.


                (above pic left to right luke,jim c jim s darren outside the deansgate pub)

Off the train we get over the railway we walk on route to the quite impressive Reebok stadium , never been here although i did see the reds play at burnden park , Luke pipes up with "Bolton's a shit hole .... i wanna go home" as we was with reds and whites prob wasn't the right choice of song ,but Luke's not shy . big lump of a Bolton fan took um bridge and in a very sad voice tries to protect his kinfolk and lands by shouting back "ill have you know this is a premiership ground ,with a premiership team" .. quite felt for the lad really as he doesn't see the black hole of debt and deprivation the rest of football sees for the famous Trotters sliding towards.... Into the ground we go , ticket scanned ..pie and a pint and a little sing song under the concourse..."Everywhere we gooooo Everywhere we go...its the forest boys making all the noise (you know the rest) .
Our seats were to the left if looking at the pitch from the red end but near the goals, to say there was only 2500 reds it looked more to me , anyway there wernt many empty seats in our tier but Bolton's lot had a poor turn out.
The game itself ..... Not sure why but every time i read match reports the next day i must have been somewhere else as its never the same as i recollect. I felt first half although neither team had much to offer, forest for me were always the more likely to score and when JL headed what i thought was a goal, but their keeper saved it, Bolton huffed and puffed but couldnt muster much i thought their best player was danns At half time we ventured down to the kiosk and i was asked what drink i would like my answer was ..another peppered steak pie, i was hank marvin .btw as pies go this was a 8 out of ten job, then a quick hello to Dean hall (@dnohall) another north west red who had come down without a ticket but managed to get a spare outside the ground, ...., the Second half had only just kicked off when our young star patto latched on to a through ball and delightfully flicked it past the keeper ..0-1 great goal , shame Elliott, Jim C and Jim S  & Darren all missed the goal due to alcohol addiction  (chuckels to himself).. forest didn't press on really for a second and the inevitable equaliser soon came around 75mins , This seemed to make the Bolton fans realise they were at a game and actually made a small amount of noise . Apparently the reds wasted time and dived about according to Dougie freedman, not in my opinion i thought we did a proper job and nearly got a deserved winner from big Darius H which came off the post.. something to note was a magical piece of skill by Jamie Paterson in the oppositions box he beat a few players with a lovely dribble unfortunately the end result wasn't a goal but from what i saw that lad is going to be a star its a shame hes going to be a Scotland star instead of a 3 lions star!!. At the final whistle Ive never ever seen a ground empty so quick  The forest team led by our tallisman Billy Davies came right over to the travelling army and thanked us, something im glad to say is well appreciated.

                                       pic ..forest end at bolton

Overall i suppose a draw was a fair result but football has never been fair has it?, if forest could get a striker that actually scores then the sky is the limit but look were we were a couple of yrs ago ..yes in Boltons position,.....so hey ho...lets enjoy the ride.
we made our way to the station and i was nearly decapitated by a car whos driver seemed to think driving out of a car park at 20mph is acceptable in large crowds, dont think he was impressed by someone slapping his rear window and stopped, jumped out and shouted "foook off home you forest bastards"....so we did just as the constabulary over reacted to nothing and ran down to see if they could brighten up their trouble free day by arresting someone. Our goodbyes were said to the Southern heading reds and we went over to the north bound Blackpool train platform. The south bound platform was full of reds and i heard a very familer  noise ......"Everywhere we Goooooo..#NFFC #twitterreds
special thanks to Elliott for getting the tickets for this game cheers pal.