Forest's next match just two days after our 1-1 draw with Liverpool on Boxing Day was a trip to geordieland and St James' Park, Newcastle. This was their second of four matches in seven days, played on pitches that were far from pristine with a tiny squad in today's terms. I can just imagine Joe Mourinho's face if he was expected to manage in such a situation. Forest won 2-0 and as Everton lost at Leeds, we stretched our lead at the top of the First Division to Five Points. More on the match later but first, what is "Geordieland" anyway?
Newcastle's glory years in the league were a long time ago, though. They won the league three times in six years from 1904 until 1909.
This made them the best team in England over a three year period for the first time too.
So in 1909, Newcastle United were a major force in English football, having won the league three times, fewer only than Aston Villa and their dreaded rivals, Sunderland.
The next year Newcastle won the F.A. Cup for the first (of six) occasions but they'd have to wait another 19 years before they won their 4th, and last, English League title.
So, for a period stretching over twenty years, Newcastle could legitimately claim to be the best team in England.
They beat the famous Hungarian side Ujpest Dosza from Budapest over two legs in the final.
So, by the time I got interested in football it was widely understood that Newcastle were more of a Cup side than a club challenging for the champiionship.
I have to give a special mention to Frank Clark, a great servant to both clubs.
Born in Geordieland, in Rowlands Gill in 1943, Frank's first club was Crook Town before joining Newcastle United in 1962. He went on to make 389 appearances for them, including the Fairs Cup win in 1968 and the cruel quarter final cup exit enacted upon Forest described above.
When he was released on a free transfer in 1975 (so just aged 32, right?) Brian Clough couldn't believe his luck and signed him straight away.
Although at the time of this match he had been out injured for almost four months, and so missed out on a return to St James' Park, he still had another 33 games left in him and would reach 117 appearances for us, and win several medals. He even scored a goal for us later in the season at Ipswich (he never did for Newcastle.) Later, he would succeed Brain Clough as Forest manager before ending his career managing Manchester City for a couple of years.
I made the long journey with the usual friends (Tim Kilbride and Gary Kelly I think) in Ian White's car. Ian was such a nice chap to drive us around the country. He was always full of whit and knowledge about the game. I'll never forget the ear to ear grins on his face after we had just taken the mickey out of some moronic football chant. Sadly, Ian passed away a couple of years ago. Anyone that knew him will always miss him.
We stood with the Forest fans in a small pen along the standing area of the East Stand. As often happened in those days objects were hurled at us from the Newcastle enclosure - a glass ash tray, I think.
At least were were protected by a fence and a line of policemen, though, so we could watch the game in peace.
It wasn't a memorable match to be honest but Forest put in a typical gutsy performance to capture maximum points against what, to be brutally honest, was a very poor Newcastle line up. This was a club that were on the demise again.
David Needham got his first goal for the club a back header at the near post from, you've guessed it, a John Roberston cross. John McGovern sealed the points with a neat finish late on.
After the game, we had the scary realization that as most Forest fans had come on the train they were the focus of police protection. They would get escorted back to the station and we, who had parked in a street nearby would have to, well just wing it. I remember as we walked out there seemed to be a wall of geordies all sporting their obvious black and white scarves lining the street as the Forest fans trundled towards the city center station. Somehow, we managed to drift away from them without getting any unwanted attention. Safely home after a very long journey.
The grueling Christmas program continued in just three days time when Forest traveled all the way down to Bristol City, followed just two days after that, with another massive home game against Everton.
Geordies
I'd just finished my first (and after totally failing to cope with the maths, I thought last) term at Nottingham University where I had encountered people from all of the country in one place for the first time. It provided a colourful atmosphere with lots of regional accents. One such guy was a geordie - John "Radio" Manion. We called him "radio" because he sounded like someone was trying to tune into a radio station. The tone of the voice seemed to go up and down randomly and then up really high at the end of his sentences.
So who are the Geordies anyway? If you're not from the North East you might get this wrong but the basic rule seems to be : find out which river is the closest to where they live, the Tyne, the Tees or the Wear?
Newcastle is on the river Tyne and that's where they speak Geordie, Sunderland is on the Wear where they speak "Mackem" or "Wearside" and Middlesbrough is on the Tees where they speak with a "Teesside" accent. There are also, aparently, "smogmonsters" which is what the Tynesiders and the Wearsiders call the Teessiders. And then there are the "monkey-hangers" - people from Hartlepool where, it is alleged, that locals hung a monkey from a ship, convinced that it was a French spy.
Here's a nice little report by Alistair McGowan which makes things a bit clearer.
Note also (thanks, Boro!) it's Tees-siders, not Tee-siders, as I had thought. It's the river Tees, not Tee, see?
So who are the Geordies anyway? If you're not from the North East you might get this wrong but the basic rule seems to be : find out which river is the closest to where they live, the Tyne, the Tees or the Wear?
Newcastle is on the river Tyne and that's where they speak Geordie, Sunderland is on the Wear where they speak "Mackem" or "Wearside" and Middlesbrough is on the Tees where they speak with a "Teesside" accent. There are also, aparently, "smogmonsters" which is what the Tynesiders and the Wearsiders call the Teessiders. And then there are the "monkey-hangers" - people from Hartlepool where, it is alleged, that locals hung a monkey from a ship, convinced that it was a French spy.
Here's a nice little report by Alistair McGowan which makes things a bit clearer.
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| Ganin yem |
Note also (thanks, Boro!) it's Tees-siders, not Tee-siders, as I had thought. It's the river Tees, not Tee, see?
Newcastle United History
Another club who might be able to sing "Mighty, mighty .... " with some honesty is Newcastle United. They're certainly a big club and surely should be one of the big six if their massive fan base could only be translated into form on the pitch. Unfortunately, though, they have been great underachievers, especially since the second world war. If any club in the English League is a "sleeping giant", it surely is Newcastle United.
They were formed in 1882, turned professional in 1889 and joined the football league in 1893, the same year as Liverpool.
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| Geordies into the League, along with the Scousers. |
As usual, Forest dominated the early seasons, followed by a bit of to-ing and fro-ing. But from 1903-04 until 1956-57 (that's 33 seasons) Newcastle finished above Forest in all but one season. Forest had a brief (5 year) period of being top dogs in the early 1960s but for the previous ten years to this fixture, the Tynesiders had been back on top again.
Overall in the 76 seasons Forest had been in the league before this one, they'd finished above Newcastle only 17 times (if you include the one season Newcastle weren't in the league) - the best being a 19 place gap, twice, in 1894-95 and 1962-63. The rest, Newcastle dominated - at most just after the war, in 1949-50 when Forest were 4th in the third tier, and Newcastle finished 41 league places higher, 5th in the top flight.
Newcastle's glory years in the league were a long time ago, though. They won the league three times in six years from 1904 until 1909.
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| Newcastle United at the start of the 1905-06 Seasons, as champions for the first time |
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| Two years later, title no 2 |
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| Champions again 1907 |
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| Newcastle United's first three-year spell as the best team in England |
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| And again, for the 3rd time, two years after that |
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| 1908-09 Newcastle United, champions again |
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| English League Winners Table in 1909 |
The next year Newcastle won the F.A. Cup for the first (of six) occasions but they'd have to wait another 19 years before they won their 4th, and last, English League title.
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| Newcastle United, champions for the 4th time |
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| The Last Time Newcastle won the League |
So, for a period stretching over twenty years, Newcastle could legitimately claim to be the best team in England.
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| England's best for 21 seasons: 1904 - 1928 |
St James' Park
St James' Park has been home to Newcastle United throughout their entire league history. It's City Center location makes it very popular with the Geordies.
The biggest attendance there was 68,386 in 1930, against Chelsea in the league. It's not obvious, from this distance to see the attraction, as both teams struggled that season. It turns out that the reason for the big crowd was because Newcastle had sold one of their beloved No 9s - Hughie Gallacher - to Chelsea the season before, for a then massive fee of £10,000, against his wishes, apparently. If reports are to be believed, around 10,000 fans were locked outside, unable to vent their anger against the board for cashing in on their hero.
Mmm... Newcastle fans not being keen on the club owners - history repeats, it seems.
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| St James' Park, packed v Sunderland in 1913 |
Mmm... Newcastle fans not being keen on the club owners - history repeats, it seems.
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| Playin in Toon |
Blaydon Races
The Geordies are famous for singing the song, Blaydon Races, although it is also sung by Sunderland and many others (even Queens Park Rangers!)
Ah me lads, ye shudda seen us gannin',
We pass'd the foaks alang the road just as they wor stannin';
Thor wis lots o' lads an' lassies there, aal wi' smiling faces,
Gannin' alang the Scotswood Road, to see the Blaydon Races.
Jackie Milburn
Although Newcastle have now failed to win the league title for the last 90 years (I still so wish Kevin Keegan had beaten them [Man U]), they have won the F. A. Cup much more recently. As mentioned above, Newcastle won the cup for the first time in 1910. They won it again in 1924 and for the 3rd time in 1932. But Newcastle really won their reputation for cup football when they won it three times in five years between 1951 and 1955. These were the latest true glory years for Newcastle United side which included the famous Jackie Milburn.
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| Jackie Milburn 177 goals in 353 appearances for Newcastle |
Milburn scored both goals against Blackpool in the 1951 final.
Newcastle won the cup again the next season against Arsenal 1-0.
Milburn scored again at Wembley as they beat Manchester City 3-1, their 6th F.A. Cup win.
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| Jimmy Scoular holds the Cup aloft in 1955 |
As we saw a few weeks ago, at the time Aston Villa were still the best English Cup side but close behind them were Newcastle United.
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| Newcastle United - 2nd best English F. A. Cup Record in 1977 |
Despite this cup success, Newcastle never finished above 8th place in the first division in this period, after which they went through a period of decline and eventually got relegated to the second division.
They returned in 1965-66 and even went on to win the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup a couple of years later under Joe Harvey although it seems they only qualified because of business fairs, like Birmingham City did earlier, as they only finished 10th in the league.
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| Fairs Cup Winners 1968-69 - Notice Frank Clark at the back |
So, by the time I got interested in football it was widely understood that Newcastle were more of a Cup side than a club challenging for the champiionship.
1974 Pitch Invasion
Like 14,000 or so other Forest fans I was at St James' Park three and a half years earlier for one of the most dramatic marches I'd ever seen, the F.A.Cup 6th Round of the 1973-74 season. With Duncan McKenzie on fire we had smashed Manchester City in the 4th round and got past Portsmouth to set the tie up.
Forest had just taken a 3-1 lead and Newcastle had been reduced to 10 men so it looked a formality now... we were on our way to the semi finals.
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| F. A. Cup Quarter Final at St James' Park 1974 |
Forest had just taken a 3-1 lead and Newcastle had been reduced to 10 men so it looked a formality now... we were on our way to the semi finals.
Scandalously, the Newcastle fans behind the Lezers End goal poured onto the pitch causing the referee to take the players off the field. When the play resumed the atmosphere had changed and Newcastle stormed back to win 4-3.
The F.A. intervened and ordered that the game be replayed (at Goodison Park). I didn't attend that but by all accounts Forest were unlucky not to win. It ended 0-0 and so a replay was needed - back at Nottingham, right? No. Worried about revenge fan trouble the F.A. ruled the second replay should be at Goodison too. Unlickily again, Forest were bundled out 1-0.
Many Forest fans still hate Newcastle even today but I must admit I forgave them when Kevin Keegan managed that fabulously entertaining team that almost won the league in the 1990s.
Frank Clark
Born in Geordieland, in Rowlands Gill in 1943, Frank's first club was Crook Town before joining Newcastle United in 1962. He went on to make 389 appearances for them, including the Fairs Cup win in 1968 and the cruel quarter final cup exit enacted upon Forest described above.When he was released on a free transfer in 1975 (so just aged 32, right?) Brian Clough couldn't believe his luck and signed him straight away.
Although at the time of this match he had been out injured for almost four months, and so missed out on a return to St James' Park, he still had another 33 games left in him and would reach 117 appearances for us, and win several medals. He even scored a goal for us later in the season at Ipswich (he never did for Newcastle.) Later, he would succeed Brain Clough as Forest manager before ending his career managing Manchester City for a couple of years.
21 teams Played - How did we fare?
So, with this match against Newcastle, Forest had now played all the other teams in the division, at least once. Each time, I've analysed the history of the club and compared it with Forest's. So, what can be concluded from this analysis?
Basically, the overwhelming and inescapable conclusion is that Forest's history had been pretty poor compared to most of the other teams - at least 15 of them, in any case - as the table below will show.
I must admit that researching and tabulating such historical data is one of the things I love most about football - sad, I know!
So, the 22 teams in the first division in 1977-78 are ranked here according to how many points they've got in the entire history of the first division. So, Everton are top largely because they'd been in the top flight more seasons than any other team and so have gathered more points overall. (If it was sorted on average points, Arsenal would be top, followed by Leeds United, Manchester United, Liverpool and Ipswich).
The one sorting that Forest would come out top is the age of the club. No First Division side was as old as us!
"TblDom" is the percentage of their history that the club has finished above Forest in terms of overall league table placing (from 1 to 92) - which pretty much coincides with the original table. "11v11" is the %age success a club has had in "head to head" competitive matches v Forest. The surprising facts that come out of that (unless I have made mistakes, which is quite possible) is that Middlesbough have a better record against Forest than their history would suggest and that we have beaten Everton more than we should have. I've given Forest "token" average scores for these two.
Then there's "DmTr" - number of domestic trophies won and "Euro" - European trophies. Forest fans should note that even in times B. C., we punched slightly above our weight on this. We had the joint 13th highest domestic trophy haul of the teams in the division even though we had the 16th most points in the first division overall. This would rapidly become much better still in the next few years.
Finally, it shows the current position in the league and the difference between that and where the club lies historically. You might think Forest would top that one, but in fact Norwich, at 5th, were 17 places above where their history should let you expect. Newcastle United were ranked bottom by that measure.
Basically, the overwhelming and inescapable conclusion is that Forest's history had been pretty poor compared to most of the other teams - at least 15 of them, in any case - as the table below will show.
I must admit that researching and tabulating such historical data is one of the things I love most about football - sad, I know!
So, the 22 teams in the first division in 1977-78 are ranked here according to how many points they've got in the entire history of the first division. So, Everton are top largely because they'd been in the top flight more seasons than any other team and so have gathered more points overall. (If it was sorted on average points, Arsenal would be top, followed by Leeds United, Manchester United, Liverpool and Ipswich).
The one sorting that Forest would come out top is the age of the club. No First Division side was as old as us!
"TblDom" is the percentage of their history that the club has finished above Forest in terms of overall league table placing (from 1 to 92) - which pretty much coincides with the original table. "11v11" is the %age success a club has had in "head to head" competitive matches v Forest. The surprising facts that come out of that (unless I have made mistakes, which is quite possible) is that Middlesbough have a better record against Forest than their history would suggest and that we have beaten Everton more than we should have. I've given Forest "token" average scores for these two.
Then there's "DmTr" - number of domestic trophies won and "Euro" - European trophies. Forest fans should note that even in times B. C., we punched slightly above our weight on this. We had the joint 13th highest domestic trophy haul of the teams in the division even though we had the 16th most points in the first division overall. This would rapidly become much better still in the next few years.
Finally, it shows the current position in the league and the difference between that and where the club lies historically. You might think Forest would top that one, but in fact Norwich, at 5th, were 17 places above where their history should let you expect. Newcastle United were ranked bottom by that measure.
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| First Division Clubs 1977-78 - Historical Comparison |
The Teams
Forest were unchanged again whereas Newcastle made one change: Ray Blackhall came in for John Blackley in defence.
Newcastle United
1 Kevin Carr, 2 Irving Nattrass, 3 Allan Barker, 4 Tom Cassidy, 5 John Bird, 6 Ray Blackhall, 7 Dennis Martin, 8 Micky Burns, 9 Paul Cannell, 10 Tommy Craig, 11 Stuart Robinson.
Substitutions: Stewart Barrowclough (12) came on for Paul Cannell(9).
Nottingham Forest
1 Peter Shilton, 2 Viv Anderson, 3 Colin Barrett, 4 John McGovern, 5 David Needham, 6 Kenny Burns, 7 Martin O'Neill, 8 Archie Gemmill, 9 Peter Withe, 10 Tony Woodcock, 11 John Robertson.
Goals : John McGovern 1, David Needham 1.
Substitutions: Ian Bowyer(12) came on for Peter Withe (9).
Attendance 40,735
Newcastle United
1 Kevin Carr, 2 Irving Nattrass, 3 Allan Barker, 4 Tom Cassidy, 5 John Bird, 6 Ray Blackhall, 7 Dennis Martin, 8 Micky Burns, 9 Paul Cannell, 10 Tommy Craig, 11 Stuart Robinson.
Substitutions: Stewart Barrowclough (12) came on for Paul Cannell(9).
Nottingham Forest
1 Peter Shilton, 2 Viv Anderson, 3 Colin Barrett, 4 John McGovern, 5 David Needham, 6 Kenny Burns, 7 Martin O'Neill, 8 Archie Gemmill, 9 Peter Withe, 10 Tony Woodcock, 11 John Robertson.
Goals : John McGovern 1, David Needham 1.
Substitutions: Ian Bowyer(12) came on for Peter Withe (9).
Attendance 40,735
The Game
This was the 80th competitive match between the two clubs. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the geordies were well on top.
I made the long journey with the usual friends (Tim Kilbride and Gary Kelly I think) in Ian White's car. Ian was such a nice chap to drive us around the country. He was always full of whit and knowledge about the game. I'll never forget the ear to ear grins on his face after we had just taken the mickey out of some moronic football chant. Sadly, Ian passed away a couple of years ago. Anyone that knew him will always miss him.
We stood with the Forest fans in a small pen along the standing area of the East Stand. As often happened in those days objects were hurled at us from the Newcastle enclosure - a glass ash tray, I think.
At least were were protected by a fence and a line of policemen, though, so we could watch the game in peace.
It wasn't a memorable match to be honest but Forest put in a typical gutsy performance to capture maximum points against what, to be brutally honest, was a very poor Newcastle line up. This was a club that were on the demise again.
David Needham got his first goal for the club a back header at the near post from, you've guessed it, a John Roberston cross. John McGovern sealed the points with a neat finish late on.
After the game, we had the scary realization that as most Forest fans had come on the train they were the focus of police protection. They would get escorted back to the station and we, who had parked in a street nearby would have to, well just wing it. I remember as we walked out there seemed to be a wall of geordies all sporting their obvious black and white scarves lining the street as the Forest fans trundled towards the city center station. Somehow, we managed to drift away from them without getting any unwanted attention. Safely home after a very long journey.
Other Matches
It was another good day for Forest elsewhere too as Everton lost again, 3-1 at Leeds United. So, from being just a point behind with an better goal difference, two games ago - Everton were now five points adrift of Forest with a goal difference that was six worse. Effectively, Forest were six points clear.
The other remarkable result that day was the nine-goal thriller at Highfield Road where Coventry beat Norwich 5-4 to maintain their interest in the title race.
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| 5 point gap at the top |
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| Forest back on top of the Current Form (Last 3 Home/Away) Table |
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| Ray Hankin and Ian Wallace make up ground |
The Programme
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