I only missed two Forest home matches in the 1977-78 season. Unforgivably, I somehow didn't attend Liam O'Kane's testimonial. I cannot fathom how that happened as I was a big fan of Liam's. I'll never forget his heroic defensive performance against Sunderland in days B. C. I am still filled with shame about that lapse but I think I should be forgiven for missing the other one. Saturday, 1st October 1977 was the date my dear sister chose to get married so there really was no option. Forest v Norwich would have to be missed. |
| As the ref blew his whistle to start the game... I was here |
It's probably been the bane of many football fans' lives that Saturdays are also a popular choice for weddings. I had to miss Wycombe Wanderers win the F. A. Trophy at Wembley (in the Martin O'Neill era) one year as a good friend had asked me to video record his wedding. It's only sport after all. Some things, quite rightly, have to come first.
As the family assembled at St Wilfrid's church in Kirkby-in-Ashfield I consoled myself that at least this wasn't one of the really big games on the fixture list. With all due respect to Norwich City, if you had to choose one home game to sacrifice in the only season your club was going to win the league, this would probably have been it. And, at least, so far, I had been to all four away games, even if the last one, was the second closest, Leicester away.
Like Bristol City, who we played earlier in the season, Norwich City had hardly been a football power house. They were formed in 1905, 40 years after Forest, and only joined the football league in 1920.
Their biggest honour before this match was winning the second division championship in 1971-72 when they won promotion to the First Division for the first time in their history, along with Birmingham City.
1958-59 F.A. Cup Run
If history had taken a slightly different turn I could have been writing here about the great 1959 F A Cup Final between Forest and Norwich, but unfortunately, the Canaries just missed out on a Wembley appearance after an amazing cup run took them to the semi-finals as a 3rd Division side.
On 19th January Norwich beat Manchester United (who would finish 2nd in the first division) 3-0 at Carrow Road in the 3rd Round. Next, they beat second division Cardiff City 3-2. In the 5th round they beat Spurs after a replay. And in the quarter finals they beat second division Sheffield United, again after a replay to reach the semi-finals where they were to face first division Luton Town.
The first game, played at White Hart Lane, was drawn 1-1 but Norwich lost the replay at St Andrews 1-0 . And so it would be Luton Town, and not Norwich City, who went on to face Nottingham Forest in the 1959 Cup Final. As all Forest fans know, this was the last time we won the F.A. Cup, beating Luton 2-1.
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| Norwich City overcome Sheffield United in the 6th Round |
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| The Norwich team that lost to Luton Town in the F A Cup semi-finals of 1959 |
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| Forest's last F.A. Cup win |
And being fair to Norwich is something I want to do here. I've always liked the club. They have always seemed to be a rather nice bunch, even before the days of Delia Smith and Stephen Fry being involved. They also have an important physical place for me as a football fanatic, as they are the club that is always listed alphabetically just before Forest in the "Rothman's" Yearbook. Furthermore, I have to say that there is something about their canary shirts and green shorts that I just find irresistible. I wonder if it's to do with my Lithuanian heritage - the Lithuanian flag has yellow and green next to each other like they do. Unlikely, because I liked Norwich before I became a "born-again" Lithuanian in the early 1980s.
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| The Lithuanian Flag - got to love that yellow & green combination |
As with Forest, Norwich City's glory years were yet to come.
Their best spell was the last three seasons of the 1980s when they had the 7th best record in England. Sorry to rub it in, Norwich fans, but Forest were still the better side, even then - we were the 4th best team in the same spell.
But let's get back to 1977. This was only the 19th time the teams had played before, and the first in the top flight. Norwich had been a bit of jinx side for Forest as we had only beaten them 4 times since they first met, in the F. A. Cup in 1915 (a game Norwich won 4-1.) Norwich had beaten us 11 times.
Anyway, they had a decent team which included England World Cup winner, Martin Peters. He was approaching 700 league appearances by then and coming to the end of an illustrious career at the age of almost 34. Also in the side was Kevin Bond, son of manager John Bond. A bit of a dirty player, if memory serves me right. Another ex-Spurs man was Jimmy Neighbour and their third Kevin in the side, Kevin Reeves who would soon join Manchester City for over a million pounds. Familiar to us Forest fans was their center half, David Jones - a player I had always rated while he was at Forest, but what do I know!? Cloughie got rid of him pretty quickly.
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| Martin Peters - a hero from 66 |
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| The name's Bond, Kevin & John Bond. |
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| Kevin Reeves - soon to be million dollar man |
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| David Jones - Forest Reject |
In the Forest team that day was Archie Gemmill, making his Forest debut, and as captain too. I'm not sure how John McGovern reacted to being dropped but the fact that he came back the very next match probably tells you something about how Clough and Taylor missed him.
The Game
The account of the game, excellently reported in John Shipley's book "Nottingham Forest 1977/78 Champions" tells of a scrappy affair with Kenny Burns putting Forest in the lead with second half header before Martin Peters equalised after a rare slip from Peter Shilton. The crowd was the second lowest home league attendance of the season, at 23,741. |
| John Shipley's excellent account of the 1977-78 season - source for much of this blog |
Nottingham Forest
1 Peter Shilton, 2 Viv Anderson, 3 Colin Barrett, 4 Ian Bowyer, 5 Larry Lloyd, 6 Kenny Burns, 7 Martin O'Neill, 8 Archie Gemill, 9 Peter Withe, 10 Tony Woodcock, 11 John Robertson.
Goals: Kenny Burns 1.
Norwich City
1 Kevin Keelan, 2 Kevin Bond, 3 Colin Sullivan, 4 John Ryan, 5 David Jones, 6 Tony Powell, 7 Jimmy Neighbour, 8 Kevin Reeves, 9 Roger Gibbins, 10 Colin Suggett, 11 Martin Peters.
Goals : Martin Peters 1.
Other Matches that day
The results elsewhere were kind to Forest as joint leaders Manchester City also drew, 1-1 at Everton and Liverpool lost 2-0 at Man Utd. So Forest's position at the end of the day was better than it had been at the start.
In other news
Not only was my sister getting married on this day but it was also the day when Pele played his last game. 70,000 watched him play for New York Cosmos against his first club Santos.
East Anglian football teams are like buses. You wait years to play one of them and the the fixture list delivers two right next to each other. Next up, again at the City Ground, Ipswich Town.
Match Day Programme
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