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.
Everton were our closest rivals and could potentially end up with 62 points if they won all their remaining seven games. Liverpool, Manchester City, Arsenal and Coventry City were all, theoretically, still in the title race but the most points they could hope to accumulate by the end of the season was 60, 59, 58 and 58 respectively.
The bottom line was that it was in Forest's hands. To clinch this most unexpected of league title wins they needed another 13 points from their remaining ten games. As Forest had averaged over 1.56 points per game in the season so far, securing 1.3 points per game now, surely shouldn't be beyond them.
However, Forest's final ten fixtures were not the easiest. We were scheduled to play just four home games and six away and the away games included trips to title challengers Liverpool, Manchester City and Coventry City as well as West Bromwich Albion who had already beaten us in the F.A. Cup, and Aston Villa.
Forest's home form had been fantastic - played 17 won 13 drawn 4 lost none. But away, we had lost three times and so were potentially vulnerable to defeat from time to time. The long season had taken its toll and both Viv Anderson and John McGovern were currently injured.
If Forest slipped up, Everton might pounce. They were looking very dangerous with Bob Latchford back to his early season form.
Here were Forest's remaining ten first division fixtures...
In order to get some kind of accurate prediction based on the form that season, I took the away form of the teams we were due to play at home against and totaled their reversed results with our home record to get an estimate of the likely result.
So, take Chelsea. They'd won 3, drawn 3 and lost 10 away from home. Forest's home record was great, as described above. So, combined against Chelsea's away form, you get 23 wins (13 Forest home wins plus 10 Chelsea away defeats), 7 draws (4 + 3) and 3 defeats (3 Chelsea away wins + 0 Forest home defeats) - that would yield 53 points from 33 games, an average of over 1.6 points per game. I judged that a likely home win.
I did the same analysis for all ten games and it led to a prediction that Forest should get 11 or 12 points, perhaps from four wins, three draws and three defeats.
At the time, a date for the Liverpool fixture hadn't been agreed yet, but it would end up being the final game of the league programme for Forest.
If you repeat the same process with Everton's remaining seven fixtures, it starts to look better for Forest even though Everton had an easier run in with four home games and three away, two of the away games were tough - at Coventry and West Brom. It didn't look as though Everton could win them all, though. I would have predicted 10 points maximum which would leave them on 58 points, three or four points behind us.
What about Liverpool? They had also had ten games remaining. Their next two games (away to Villa and Everton) looked difficult but after that Liverpool theoretically were capable of winning all their remaining fixtures. This would take them to a total of 16 points which would make them finish on 56 points.
But even 56 points would not be enough, surely.
So the only conclusion to be made at the point in time of the Chelsea match was that if the remaining games went to form, Forest should win the league title by three or four points, from Everton, with Liverpool third.
It would appear all we had to do was win three of the home games and pick up three or four points in the six away games.
So, let's start by beating Chelsea. After all, they're rubbish, aren't they? Well in 1978 they weren't as feared as they are today.
Here's some action from Arsenal's impressive 3-1 at home to Manchester United that day.
Here's some action from Ashton Gate. The Geordies really looking doomed now.
The table now looked like this...
So, Forest now needed eleven points from their remaining nine games (1.22 points/game) to be certain of winning the league but, although our win against Chelsea was as I'd expected (as was Everton's) Liverpool's big victory at Villa was not. This meant my prediction of their final points total would have to be revised up to 58, the same as Everton.
At the end of the day though, we took another step closer to winning the league that day.
Birmingham, with Trevor Francis on fire, were the surprise form team of the moment.
The win also stretched Forest's unbeaten home run (in all competitions) to 28 games.
So, 33 gone, 9 to go. Next up, a tough-looking fixture at Villa Park in Birmingham next Wednesday, forty years ago.
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, Arsenal and Coventry City were all, theoretically, still in the title race but the most points they could hope to accumulate by the end of the season was 60, 59, 58 and 58 respectively.
The bottom line was that it was in Forest's hands. To clinch this most unexpected of league title wins they needed another 13 points from their remaining ten games. As Forest had averaged over 1.56 points per game in the season so far, securing 1.3 points per game now, surely shouldn't be beyond them.
However, Forest's final ten fixtures were not the easiest. We were scheduled to play just four home games and six away and the away games included trips to title challengers Liverpool, Manchester City and Coventry City as well as West Bromwich Albion who had already beaten us in the F.A. Cup, and Aston Villa.
Forest's home form had been fantastic - played 17 won 13 drawn 4 lost none. But away, we had lost three times and so were potentially vulnerable to defeat from time to time. The long season had taken its toll and both Viv Anderson and John McGovern were currently injured.
If Forest slipped up, Everton might pounce. They were looking very dangerous with Bob Latchford back to his early season form.
Here were Forest's remaining ten first division fixtures...
In order to get some kind of accurate prediction based on the form that season, I took the away form of the teams we were due to play at home against and totaled their reversed results with our home record to get an estimate of the likely result.
So, take Chelsea. They'd won 3, drawn 3 and lost 10 away from home. Forest's home record was great, as described above. So, combined against Chelsea's away form, you get 23 wins (13 Forest home wins plus 10 Chelsea away defeats), 7 draws (4 + 3) and 3 defeats (3 Chelsea away wins + 0 Forest home defeats) - that would yield 53 points from 33 games, an average of over 1.6 points per game. I judged that a likely home win.
I did the same analysis for all ten games and it led to a prediction that Forest should get 11 or 12 points, perhaps from four wins, three draws and three defeats.
At the time, a date for the Liverpool fixture hadn't been agreed yet, but it would end up being the final game of the league programme for Forest.
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| Forest's tough remaining ten games - I predicted 11 or 12 points from them - so, 61 or 62 points to beat. |
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| Everton had an easier run in, but surely they couldn't win them all |
But even 56 points would not be enough, surely.
So the only conclusion to be made at the point in time of the Chelsea match was that if the remaining games went to form, Forest should win the league title by three or four points, from Everton, with Liverpool third.
It would appear all we had to do was win three of the home games and pick up three or four points in the six away games.
So, let's start by beating Chelsea. After all, they're rubbish, aren't they? Well in 1978 they weren't as feared as they are today.
Chelsea before the Greediership
Exactly one year before this fixture, on 1st April 1977, Chelsea stood proud, joint top of the Second Division (but second to Wolves on goal difference). Forest had reasserted their promotion challenge but were not favourites to take the third spot as Bolton had games in hand over us.
As described earlier, it was amazing enough even that Forest got promotion in the end. What had followed this season was simply unbelievable. Nobody, not even Brian Clough or Peter Taylor, could have predicted the way Forest took the top division by storm, leaving both fellow promoted sides behind. Chelsea were struggling towards the bottom of the league, in 17th place, just seven points above the relegation zone. This was the sort of table position they'd occupied all season and they'd never been in the top half. Chelsea had made it to the 5th Round of the Cup but surprisingly lost at home to Orient in a home replay.
Chelsea still seemed to have something over us though, as they were one of just three teams to beat us (1-0 at Stamford Bridge on November 5th) in the first division that season. In fact in our last 16 meetings, Forest had only beaten Chelsea once, a 2-1 home win in March 1972, our relegation year. There had been seven draws, leaving eight defeats. In the promotion season, they'd beaten us late in the season at "The Bridge" too, 2-1, and they halted Forest's high scoring run of home victories earlier on in the season by holding us to a 1-1 draw.
Here's some footage of that match.
Even at the City Ground, our record wasn't really great. Here's a list of all the previous 30 matches between Forest and Chelsea playing in Nottingham.
The last time Forest had done the double over Chelsea was the 1908-09 season.
To be fair, Chelsea's record overall, even before the days of mega rich owners, was a lot better than Forest's. In the 62 seasons both clubs have competed in the league, Forest have only finished higher than Chelsea 13 times. That's a 79% v 21% margin for Chelsea.
I'm starting to feel sick. I never really liked the club despite the fact that the only chap I knew in my home town of Kirkby-in-Ashfield who liked Chelsea at school was a hero of mine. He was an all round sporting legend, one of the few from my school of 2,000+ pupils, Ashfield Comprehensive, to go on to university and excel in academia (as a pharmacist), he was head boy, inspired me to go to Sherwood Hall at Nottingham University, influenced a great deal of my early musical taste (especially towards the blues) and is... my brother in law. But supporting Chelsea? Why?
Chelsea also gave me my first reason to cry after a football match when they luckily beat Leeds United in the 1970 F.A. Cup final.
Chelsea always seemed a bit flash, a bunch of prima donas, even as a kid. As I grew up I learned another way to hate them - their rather horrible bunch of violent fans.
Forest's average absolute league position, remember, had been 24th. Chelsea's was 15th.
But this favourable comparison with Forest, let's be honest, is more a reflection on our rather mediocre football history, rather than being a testament to their historic greatness.
Indeed in the all-time First Division League Table, Chelsea were 17th at the end of the 1976-77 season. Forest were 26th. To put this into a modern context, it's as if Chelsea's success in the first division was about the same as Bolton Wanderers, Leicester City or Leeds United in the last 20 years or so.
If you contrast this with the modern era, say since 1996-97, Chelsea have only finished outside the top six once - that one terrible season in 2015-16 when Chelsea "only" finished tenth, poor things.
It is my biggest beef with the modern era that the first division, sorry "Premier League", table is now so much more predictable than in the good old days.
Ask the question "which teams do you think will finish in the top six next season?" and the answer is a no brainer. How does it go? Manchester City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur. Fans think they're clever in picking which of these special six they think will finish higher than the others. Big deal.
Of course, fans of the oligarchs will quickly remind you of that one crazy year when it didn't quite happen. Yes, in 2015-16, the first division was won by Leicester City. Amazing, wasn't it? But the other five in the top six were the usual suspects, apart from Chelsea, who, as I just mentioned, had a shockingly terrible season, only finishing tenth.
This chart shows how noisy the league positions of the current big six was until the modern era - and how Forest have fallen away so badly compared to them.
And if you zoom in to the last ten years or so, whenAbu Dhabi Manchester City joined the mega rich that make up the big six, it looks even worse.
One criticism of these data is that it is "teleocentric" - in other words, they look back from today, where we know what the the six big teams are. So, it's bound to look "noisier" in the past. Pick any period of English football history and you'd see a similar thing.
True, but I don't think it's the key point here.
A testable prediction would be that the total number of points won by the teams finishing in the top six, as a ratio of all the points available, should be higher today than it has ever been in the past, if there's a shift towards the richer clubs dominating.
Before looking at the stats, there is one problem that needs to be tackled. The number of teams in the first division has changed. In 1888-89 there were just twelve teams, for example. But you can easily correct for that - effectively just getting the top 30% of teams, rather than the top six.
So here's the data, and the figures don't look good. The eight seasons, out of 119, most dominated by the top 6 (or 30% of teams in the league) have all happened in the last 17 seasons, in the "greediership" era.
Here's another measure. Over a ten year period, how many different teams have finished in the top four of the first division. Theoretically, it could be as many as 40, right?
Historically, over the entire history of the football league, the number of different teams finishing in the top four over the previous ten years has averaged around 15. As one might expect, the number reached its peak (of twenty teams) just after the first and second world wars.
The figure never dropped below ten teams (which was the number after the very first ten year period) and only reached 12 teams five times. Never, that is, until the Premier league era. Since then, the usual number has been just seven and once it dropped to just six.
One might argue that this is just sour grapes from a moaning old Forest fan who's feeling sorry for himself because Forest's glory years are long gone and will probably never return.
You might have a point there, but I would argue that I'm also just a football fan, generally, and I really long for the English league I remember which was genuinely competitive.
Forest, it is true, did also dominate the league for a few years, along with the great Liverpool side of the late 70s and early 80s and a few others but it wasn't the same as today. Forest's transformation was almost totally due to the incredible managerial talent of two men, Brian Clough and Peter Taylor. Liverpool too, it could be argued, dominated so much for so long, largely due to a great managerial legacy of Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley. It wasn't just a big cash injection from mega millionaires.
Blackburn Rovers' Jack Walker might have started the money-bags trend but it's been followed eagerly by so many clubs that one really wonders where it's going to end. It's not sport if you know who is going to win. If it carries on like this we'll end up with a few of the World's richest clubs playing in a super-duper league, exclusively guaranteed for them. The quality of football would, no doubt, be great but is that really all that matters here?
In an hour I'll set off to watch my local favourite team Perth Soccer Club (formerly called "Perth Italia") play in the West Australian Premier League. The standard of football is not brilliant, certainly when compared with the top two or three tiers in England. They'd struggle against most A League teams too, but they have a young squad of players who have almost all come up through the ranks of the juniors and they all play a decent standard with passion and pride.
It's a competitive league and although the "azzurri" have an amazing record of silverware over their 70 year history (the Juventus of WA, some might say) it's not the result of sugar daddies piling in the cash, it's due to a great club ethic and a lot of hard work and enthusiasm.
It's a friendly club who appreciate and know pretty much all their fans. Every week I seem to get greeted personally by the CEO, Gary Marocchi, and I often chat to the players, coaches and the manager Ramon Falzon after the game. They have a bar that's perfectly situated overlooking the ground. It feels like you're in an executive box every week. What's wrong with that, eh?
I would urge football fans all over the world to look at their local teams and find one to support. I hate the way football's going and this is my way of keeping my feet on the ground.
Forza Azzurri!!
Anyway, going back to looking back to forty years ago, it certainly cheers me up to think that Forest faced Chelsea that day with no fear and fully expecting to win. There were no billionaire sugar daddies in English football in those days.
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| One year ago - Chelsea were top dogs, not us |
Chelsea still seemed to have something over us though, as they were one of just three teams to beat us (1-0 at Stamford Bridge on November 5th) in the first division that season. In fact in our last 16 meetings, Forest had only beaten Chelsea once, a 2-1 home win in March 1972, our relegation year. There had been seven draws, leaving eight defeats. In the promotion season, they'd beaten us late in the season at "The Bridge" too, 2-1, and they halted Forest's high scoring run of home victories earlier on in the season by holding us to a 1-1 draw.
Here's some footage of that match.
Even at the City Ground, our record wasn't really great. Here's a list of all the previous 30 matches between Forest and Chelsea playing in Nottingham.
 |
| At the City Ground P 30 W 11 D 10 L 9 |
The last time Forest had done the double over Chelsea was the 1908-09 season.
 |
| Forest's overall record against Chelsea was poor |
To be fair, Chelsea's record overall, even before the days of mega rich owners, was a lot better than Forest's. In the 62 seasons both clubs have competed in the league, Forest have only finished higher than Chelsea 13 times. That's a 79% v 21% margin for Chelsea.
I'm starting to feel sick. I never really liked the club despite the fact that the only chap I knew in my home town of Kirkby-in-Ashfield who liked Chelsea at school was a hero of mine. He was an all round sporting legend, one of the few from my school of 2,000+ pupils, Ashfield Comprehensive, to go on to university and excel in academia (as a pharmacist), he was head boy, inspired me to go to Sherwood Hall at Nottingham University, influenced a great deal of my early musical taste (especially towards the blues) and is... my brother in law. But supporting Chelsea? Why?
Chelsea also gave me my first reason to cry after a football match when they luckily beat Leeds United in the 1970 F.A. Cup final.
Chelsea always seemed a bit flash, a bunch of prima donas, even as a kid. As I grew up I learned another way to hate them - their rather horrible bunch of violent fans.
Forest's average absolute league position, remember, had been 24th. Chelsea's was 15th.
But this favourable comparison with Forest, let's be honest, is more a reflection on our rather mediocre football history, rather than being a testament to their historic greatness.
Indeed in the all-time First Division League Table, Chelsea were 17th at the end of the 1976-77 season. Forest were 26th. To put this into a modern context, it's as if Chelsea's success in the first division was about the same as Bolton Wanderers, Leicester City or Leeds United in the last 20 years or so.
 |
| Chelsea's historical position - about that of Bolton or Leicester in the modern era |
If you contrast this with the modern era, say since 1996-97, Chelsea have only finished outside the top six once - that one terrible season in 2015-16 when Chelsea "only" finished tenth, poor things.
 |
| Chelsea one of the oligarchs since the Premier League era |
Ask the question "which teams do you think will finish in the top six next season?" and the answer is a no brainer. How does it go? Manchester City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur. Fans think they're clever in picking which of these special six they think will finish higher than the others. Big deal.
Of course, fans of the oligarchs will quickly remind you of that one crazy year when it didn't quite happen. Yes, in 2015-16, the first division was won by Leicester City. Amazing, wasn't it? But the other five in the top six were the usual suspects, apart from Chelsea, who, as I just mentioned, had a shockingly terrible season, only finishing tenth.
This chart shows how noisy the league positions of the current big six was until the modern era - and how Forest have fallen away so badly compared to them.
And if you zoom in to the last ten years or so, when
 |
| The First Division is getting more predictable |
True, but I don't think it's the key point here.
A testable prediction would be that the total number of points won by the teams finishing in the top six, as a ratio of all the points available, should be higher today than it has ever been in the past, if there's a shift towards the richer clubs dominating.
Before looking at the stats, there is one problem that needs to be tackled. The number of teams in the first division has changed. In 1888-89 there were just twelve teams, for example. But you can easily correct for that - effectively just getting the top 30% of teams, rather than the top six.
So here's the data, and the figures don't look good. The eight seasons, out of 119, most dominated by the top 6 (or 30% of teams in the league) have all happened in the last 17 seasons, in the "greediership" era.
 |
| Top Six (or 30% of teams) dominate more and more |
Here's another measure. Over a ten year period, how many different teams have finished in the top four of the first division. Theoretically, it could be as many as 40, right?
Historically, over the entire history of the football league, the number of different teams finishing in the top four over the previous ten years has averaged around 15. As one might expect, the number reached its peak (of twenty teams) just after the first and second world wars.
The figure never dropped below ten teams (which was the number after the very first ten year period) and only reached 12 teams five times. Never, that is, until the Premier league era. Since then, the usual number has been just seven and once it dropped to just six.
 |
| Boring, boring Greediership. |
You might have a point there, but I would argue that I'm also just a football fan, generally, and I really long for the English league I remember which was genuinely competitive.
Forest, it is true, did also dominate the league for a few years, along with the great Liverpool side of the late 70s and early 80s and a few others but it wasn't the same as today. Forest's transformation was almost totally due to the incredible managerial talent of two men, Brian Clough and Peter Taylor. Liverpool too, it could be argued, dominated so much for so long, largely due to a great managerial legacy of Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley. It wasn't just a big cash injection from mega millionaires.
Blackburn Rovers' Jack Walker might have started the money-bags trend but it's been followed eagerly by so many clubs that one really wonders where it's going to end. It's not sport if you know who is going to win. If it carries on like this we'll end up with a few of the World's richest clubs playing in a super-duper league, exclusively guaranteed for them. The quality of football would, no doubt, be great but is that really all that matters here?
It's a competitive league and although the "azzurri" have an amazing record of silverware over their 70 year history (the Juventus of WA, some might say) it's not the result of sugar daddies piling in the cash, it's due to a great club ethic and a lot of hard work and enthusiasm.
It's a friendly club who appreciate and know pretty much all their fans. Every week I seem to get greeted personally by the CEO, Gary Marocchi, and I often chat to the players, coaches and the manager Ramon Falzon after the game. They have a bar that's perfectly situated overlooking the ground. It feels like you're in an executive box every week. What's wrong with that, eh?
I would urge football fans all over the world to look at their local teams and find one to support. I hate the way football's going and this is my way of keeping my feet on the ground.
Forza Azzurri!!
Anyway, going back to looking back to forty years ago, it certainly cheers me up to think that Forest faced Chelsea that day with no fear and fully expecting to win. There were no billionaire sugar daddies in English football in those days.
The Teams
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| Chopper |
Forest made one change. A rare one that wasn't caused by an injury. Larry Lloyd was reinstated at the back in place of David Needham. Presumably, something had been spotted at Middlesbrough to cause Clough and/or Taylor to make a change. Bowyer continued in the place of "Spider" Anderson and John O'Hare continued in place of John McGovern.
John Robertson, Tony Woodcock and Kenny Burns were all making their 47th consecutive appearance of the season. A 100% record. That's 33 league games, 6 F.A. Cup and 8 League Cup games.
In fact, if you include last season's matches, John Robertson had now played in 75 consecutive games for Forest in League and Cup. It was as if the No 11 had been tattooed onto his back.
The last game Robbo had missed for Forest was back in 1976, on December 18th, the home game versus Plymouth Argyle, which we drew 1-1. That was 469 days ago!
Tony Woodcock's record was even better though. This was Tony's 82nd consecutive match for us. The last game he'd missed was Oldham Athletic away on October 30th 1976, 518 days ago. Who did Woodcock replace? Barry Butlin. He'd played (and scored) in our 5-2 win over Burnley the Saturday before but he'd never make a start again for Forest after that.
In fact, if you include last season's matches, John Robertson had now played in 75 consecutive games for Forest in League and Cup. It was as if the No 11 had been tattooed onto his back.
The last game Robbo had missed for Forest was back in 1976, on December 18th, the home game versus Plymouth Argyle, which we drew 1-1. That was 469 days ago!
Tony Woodcock's record was even better though. This was Tony's 82nd consecutive match for us. The last game he'd missed was Oldham Athletic away on October 30th 1976, 518 days ago. Who did Woodcock replace? Barry Butlin. He'd played (and scored) in our 5-2 win over Burnley the Saturday before but he'd never make a start again for Forest after that.
For Chelsea, Clive Walker replaced David Hay.
Peter Bonetti was making his 577th league appearance for Chelsea and "Chopper" Harris his 564th.
Nottingham Forest
1 Peter Shilton, 2 Ian Bowyer, 3 Frank Clark, 4 John O'Hare, 5 Larry Lloyd, 6 Kenny Burns, 7 Martin O'Neill, 8 Archie Gemmill, 9 Peter Withe, 10 Tony Woodcock, 11 John Robertson.
Goals: Kenny Burns 68m, Martin O'Neill 82m, John Robertson 87m.
Substitutions: Colin Barrett (12) came on for Archie Gemmill (8).
Chelsea
1 Peter Bonetti, 2 Gary Locke, 3 Ron Harris, 4 Ian Britton, 5 Micky Droy, 6 Steve Wicks, 7 Steve Finnieston, 8 Ken Swain, 9 Tommy Langley, 10 Ray Lewington, 11 Clive Walker.
Goals : Tommy Langley 8m.
1 Peter Shilton, 2 Ian Bowyer, 3 Frank Clark, 4 John O'Hare, 5 Larry Lloyd, 6 Kenny Burns, 7 Martin O'Neill, 8 Archie Gemmill, 9 Peter Withe, 10 Tony Woodcock, 11 John Robertson.
Goals: Kenny Burns 68m, Martin O'Neill 82m, John Robertson 87m.
Substitutions: Colin Barrett (12) came on for Archie Gemmill (8).
Chelsea
1 Peter Bonetti, 2 Gary Locke, 3 Ron Harris, 4 Ian Britton, 5 Micky Droy, 6 Steve Wicks, 7 Steve Finnieston, 8 Ken Swain, 9 Tommy Langley, 10 Ray Lewington, 11 Clive Walker.
Goals : Tommy Langley 8m.
Attendance: 31,262
The Game
I went along to the City Ground along with over 31,000 others and, as usual, stood in the Trent End.
Murphy's Law seem to strike today, making April fools of all of us confidently expecting an easy win.
After just eight minutes Chelsea took a shock lead. Ron "Chopper" Harris floated a free kick into the Forest area and was met perfectly by center back Micky Droy. His header was uncharacteristically fumbled by player's player of the year, Peter Shilton and Tommy Langley got to the ball first to stick it in the net. Forest 0 Chelsea 1 after just eight minutes.
Chelsea's confidence seemed to be lifted by this and they continued to look dangerous, largely on the counter-attack from relentless Forest pressure, throughout the half.
Larry Lloyd rattled the woodwork from long range. Walker cleared off the line from a Burns header and just before half time Tony Woodcock had a goal disallowed for a foul on Bonetti.
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| Kenny Burns adds to the pressure on the Chelsea goal |
So, Forest were losing at half time and as news filtered through that Everton were winning at home to Derby 2-1 we began to get a little nervous. If the scores stayed the same, Everton would draw level with us at the top of the league - albeit having played three games more and we'd still be top on goal difference.
In the second half, Forest really piled on the pressure but Chelsea remained a threat on the break. Walker blocked Lloyd's header on the line and then nearly made it 2-0 at the other end. Then Woodcock brought a great save from Bonetti and O'Neill flashed a drive just wide of the post. Then Shilton saved from Walker and Bonetti did the same again from Woodcock.
Things were getting a bit desperate and mid way through the second half Clough/Taylor made a rare tactical change. Archie Gemmill was replaced by Colin Barrett who slotted in at right back releasing Ian Bowyer to go into midfield. O'Neill volleyed narrowly wide almost immediately.
Finally, the tension was released in the 68th when a Robertson corner was met by a powerful Kenny Burns header that hit the post, and a Chelsea defender, before going in for the deserved equaliser.
Forest's assault on goal intensified and an O'Neill shot brushed a Chelsea defender to go out fore a corner. But he wasn't frustrated for long. With just eight minutes to go, Clark laid it on for our No 7 to blast a great goal to put Forest into the lead at last.
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| O'Neill almost scores |
Robertson completed the win with his 10th league goal of the season after running straight at the Chelsea defence before unleashing an unstoppable shot.
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| Robbo makes it 3-1 |
Relief! An April fools Day banana skin was avoided and we stayed in control of our destiny.
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| Forest at the City Ground "Anfieldesque" |
Other Games
Everton hung on to beat Derby to keep the pressure on. Bob Latchford scored yet again. In fact all the top teams apart from Coventry City got maximum points.
Birmingham won 1-0 at Wolves and you know who got the goal - Trevor Francis, his 9th goal in 9 league games. The Blues were really on good form and would overtake Forest in the current form table after this.
The lowest crowd of the season so far, under 13,000, watched QPR's 1-0 win against Middlesbrough.
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| Everton keep up the pressure. Lowest crowd of the season so far at Loftus Road. |
Here's some action from Arsenal's impressive 3-1 at home to Manchester United that day.
Here's some action from Ashton Gate. The Geordies really looking doomed now.
The table now looked like this...
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| The lead stays at two points with nine games to go |
At the end of the day though, we took another step closer to winning the league that day.
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| Latchford and Francis still battling it out |
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| Forest slip to 4th in the Current Form table |
The win also stretched Forest's unbeaten home run (in all competitions) to 28 games.
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| City Ground Fortress getting stronger |
So, 33 gone, 9 to go. Next up, a tough-looking fixture at Villa Park in Birmingham next Wednesday, forty years ago.
The Programme
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