Forest 40 years ago

Forest escaped from Ayresome Park on Wednesday night with a 2-2 draw at Middlesbrough, 40 years ago, to restore their two point lead at the top of the league (with three games in hand.) And now they faced Chelsea at home. The prospect might sound a little scary for young fans today who have only known football in the era of the Premier League but in those days Chelsea held no particular fear for us. So, in this 50th blog post in the series, I'll take a look at how average Chelsea were in the days before mega millions from rich oil men and have an old man grumble about how predictable the first division premier league has become. First though, I'll focus in on Forest's next ten games - their countdown to the first division title. Countdown to the League Championship The top of the table looked like this... Everton were our closest rivals and could potentially end up with 62 points if they won all their remaining seven games. Liverpool, Manchester City, ...

After having faced one team from the north east the Saturday before, 40 years ago today, Forest had to face another. They'd beaten Newcastle United at home 1-0 and now faced the relatively long (about 130 miles or 209 km) trip to Middlesbrough for a Wednesday night fixture. Only Newcastle (256 km) and Bristol (220 km) were further away trips for Forest in the league that season so it must have been a bit of struggle to get to - thanks again are due, presumably, to Ian White for a lift there. Forest had soundly beaten 'Boro 4-0 earlier in the season . My blog for that match covered their history, including the important period when Brian Clough and Peter Taylor played for them. So here, I'll focus on Ayresome Park, a proper football ground, alas no longer in existence and Middlesbrough's frustrating lack of success in their long history. Seventh Game in March Like most clubs, Forest and Boro had been hit hard with the weather that winter and now that it had st...