We are the Champions!

Today (40 years ago) was the day Forest won the league. It still seems incredible, even now, but it really did happen. I was there to see them clinch it at Highfield Road, home of Coventry City. So this blog entry - and the whole series of course - is a celebration of that memory and others in those days long gone but hopefully never forgotten. After the 1-0 home win against QPR last Tuesday, and Liverpool slipping up against Ipswich, we knew we only needed a point to clinch the title.

First, I'll pay tribute to Coventry City and their previous, in my opinion, very pleasant, ground, Highfield Road. Like Forest they have fallen from grace since those glorious days, even if the Sky Blues' greatest heights were never as high as ours and the depths they have fallen to since are worse than ours ever were. Two days before this match, Kenny Burns was awarded the Footballer of the Year award - so I must tap in a short tribute to good ol' Kenny too and promote a little known fact about his later career.

I'm going to try to capture a bit of what was going on in the spring of 1978 as we stroll down memory lane back to Highfield Road to take our place among the thousands of Forest fans packed into the open end for the game.

Finally, of course, I'll report on the other games that day and how, finally, Forest were deservedly crowned Champions of England for the first, and only time. I'll pay half decent, nerdy statistical attention to their stats for the season to reveal, for example, that Forest's title win included the best defensive record in English football league history (at the time).

Not sent to Coventry, I went gleefully (Ground 45)

The saying getting "sent to Coventry" is an odd one. It means that you're ignoring or ostracising someone. There are various theories about the origin of the phrase but let's just say here that there was no ignoring or ostracising going on that day. Thousands of Forest fans made the short trip to one of our closest five away games. For me, in particular, it couldn't have been a better time to add another ground to my growing list. This would be my 267th game and my 45th English football ground visited.

Highfield Road - Ground 45

I covered the history of Coventry City a little in the blog for the 19th league match at the City Ground, on 10th December 1977, a game Forest won 2-1. So here I'll just fill in a few extra bits and bobs about their ground, Highfield Road, which was their home from 1899 right up until the end of the 2004-05 season - that's 106 years.

First image of Highfield Road in 1909

It's nice (and it's been rare in these blogs) to find a club whose history does not compare favourably with Forest's, so I can't resist showing the historical league chart again, bigger and bolder than before.

Coventry City were quite late joining the football league, doing so in the great expansion after the first world war. But it wasn't until 1937 when the "Bantams" finished above Forest in the league. If anyone is wondering about that knickname, remember they didn't become known as the Sky Blues until the days of Jimmy Hill after his 'sky blue revolution'.

They won the Third Division South in 1935-36, scoring 102 goals in the process. The scenes of celebration after their last game against mid-table Torquay United are immortalized on camera. 30,614 fans were there to watch them win 2-1 on 2nd May 1936 to clinch the title.

These were the days of the great Harry Storer, the manager, some may remember, that inspired Brian Clough and Peter Taylor.

Famous scenes at Highfield Road in 1936 as they celebrated promotion to the second division.

After a few seasons before the war when they flirted with promotion to the first division, things went downhill afterwards and Coventry found themselves in the fourth division in its inaugural season. They won promotion at the first attempt and after a period of consolidation the club made their greatest ever decision when they appointed forward-thinking Jimmy Hill as manager in November 1961.

Sky Blue revolution about to happen here

The ground would be transformed over the next ten years or so.

Highfield Road starts to take on an air of familiarity in 1964

Coventry's biggest crowd ever recorded was at another end of season championship clincher in 1967. On 29th April they played local rivals, and promotion chasers, Wolverhampton Wanderers. An incredible 51,457 packed into Highfield Road to watch the Sky Blues win 3-1 to go level on points with Wolves in the chase for the second division title. Both clubs had already guaranteed promotion to the first division, City for the first time ever.

Over 51,000 at Highfield Road to watch Coventry v Wolves

I always remember watching a Wolves v Coventry match on the TV around the mid 1970s on Star Soccer with Hugh Johns commentating. It was in the early days when some matches were shown in colour but we still only had a black & white set. It was impossible to tell the teams apart because both played in black shorts and sky blue and Wolves' Old Gold looked the same shade of grey. I think their socks were the same colour too.

For more details see these web sites about Sky Blues History or Highfield Road History.

I went there four times overall. I must say I always liked the ground and thought it was perfectly suited to Coventry who were a first division team for the time of all my visits. But for some reason, they wanted better.

Forest's record at Highfield Road hadn't been too bad.

Forest last won at Highfield Road in 1967

In 2005 Coventry City moved 3 and a half miles north, along the Jimmy Hill Way, to the Ricoh Areana. I've not been there yet but it looks pretty well designed with it's own station next door and a Double Tree by Hilton hotel as part of the stadium itself.

Follow the Jimmy Hill Way

Them wo't Days for Coventry and Forest

It seems incredible that despite such a long spell in the top flight and moving to a brand new all-seater stadium the club have hit such bad times recently.

Coventry never bettered their 6th place achieved in 1969-70 but as Forest were winning the league City did finish 7th, their second best ever position and the 75 league goals they scored was by far their best ever. 7th position was repeated again in 1988-89 and Coventry finally got their first major silverware in 1987 when they beat Spurs 3-2 in the F.A. Cup final.

When they were finally relegated, in 2000-1, Coventry had spent a very impressive 34 consecutive seasons in the first division, a figure only bettered by Liverpool, Everton and Arsenal.

In 2013 they even played their games at Sixfields Stadium, Northampton, as the club struggled financially in the third tier and fell out with the owners of the ground. They did return to the Ricoh arena a year later but the performances on the field continued to get worse and last season they were relegated to the fourth division for the first time since 1959.

Back to the Fourth

Of course, we Forest fans aren't gloating about clubs that fall from grace. Coventry hung around in top flight longer than we did and we hit the third tier when they were still comfortably a second division team. When clubs are owned as a play thing of billionaires with little more than a romantic notion of what "might be" to inspire them the outcomes are usually terrible and we're still holding our breath at Forest to see if things really are back on the upswing, or perhaps that we're just in the eye of the storm for now.

What was going on in 1978?

When you get to my age, you have to stop and think to remember what things were like in 1978 - well I do, anyway!

It's a bit weird because the person experiencing all this stuff forty years ago, is the same person writing this today. From my perspective, it's the world that changed, not me. But clearly, I've changed a lot too. Most critically, many millions of my brain cells that experienced the events forty years ago are long gone, as are the memory patterns that must have buzzed around from place to place.

Politics in '78

Let's see what can be remembered about what was going on in 1978. OK, what I mean is let's Google stuff that was definitely happening and see if anything rings any bells.

Jim - PM

The old Labour party (as opposed to Tony Blair's "New Labour") were still in power in those days as this was still in the days before Mrs Thatcher. The prime minister of the day was Jim Callaghan.

Then there were nine

There was no furore going on about Europe. The UK had become members five years earlier, joining alongside Ireland and Denmark. So the EU at that time still only had nine members.

The political news of the day wasn't dominated by an egotist called Donald Trump. Not quite, anyway. He certainly was already well established on the real estate scene in New York and was already courting a lot of controversy obtaining tax breaks from the city for extravagant building projects.

Donald Trump in 1978, Koch, and others

Most politicians seemed sensible, boring or evil. The US senate had just voted to allow control of the Panama canal to pass to the county through which it ran - Panama. But only at the end of the century.

Who was the president of the United States of America when Forest won the league?

Jimmy Carter!

Brezhnev

The Soviet Union was still very much in its oppressive and scary heyday. The leader was Leonid Brezhnev - this was long before Mr Gorbachov's "Glasnost" revolution. As an indication of what was going on in the USSR, there were demonstrations in Tblisi against plans from Moscow to stop Georgian being the exclusive language of the government. And just two days earlier the Soviets had shot down a passenger airline, Korean flight 902, for violating Soviet airspace. The plane made an emergency landing on ice in the Karelian peninsula. Luckily there were only two fatalities. My dad's country, Lithuania, was still firmly in the grip of the Soviet Union, as it had been since June 1940. The thought that Lithuania would become independent again, in less than 13 years, would have been dismissed as crazy talk if anyone had thought to voice the possibility.

Popular Culture in 1978

What about in popular culture? What was No 1?

This...

The film Grease, which featured many of these Bee Gees disco classics, hadn't been released yet. That would happen in a few months.

This was the top twenty on the day Forest won the league...

Top 20 on 22nd April 1978

None of the films current at the time strike much of a chord with me, but that might be just that I was more interested in football than films at the time. One that I have heard of, Dawn of the Dead, was released a few days earlier.

On the tely, the very first episode of Dallas had just been broadcast by CBS in the 'States. and on BBC radio, the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy had just started.

On the same night Forest won the league there was an iconic event that still goes on today... the Euro-vision song contest.

In 1978 it was held in Yugoslavia (not the "former republic of Yugoslavia", note) and it was won by Israel.

Science '78

In the world of science, the world first human being destined to be born from in vitro fertilization, Loiuse Brown, was still doing well. Her mother was around 27 weeks at the time.

It's ironic for me to think about one scientific event that began on 20th August 1977, the day Forest started their amazing season in the first division. Voyager 2 is still going over 40 years on from that date, along with its sister ship, Voyager 1 that was released 16 days later. The two ships are still hurtling their way through space and are destined be the first to leave the solar system.

Voyager 2 launched the day of Forest's 3-1 at Goodison Park

In the world of IT nothing much was happening yet, of course, but the world's first Bulletin Board had started in Chicago.

World Cup Argentina 1978

But what about the world of football? I've not written much about the international dimension in these blogs, mainly because England were marginally eliminated by Italy from Group 2. England had lost to Italy 2-0 in Rome in November 1976 but beaten them by the same score at Wembley a year later. Both England and Italy won their other four games so it went down to goal difference. Italy edged us by just three goals so if you had to decide the night when England failed to qualify for the World Cup it would probably be October 12th. England played in Luxembourg and won, but only by 2-0. Italy had won the same fixture 4-0.

That was the context for the friendly international played the same week Forest won the league: England v Brazil at Wembley.

It's also truly bizarre, looking back forty years ago from here, that the night of England's big World Cup disappointment in Luxembourg was the same night that Scotland beat Wales 2-0 in Liverpool to qualify for the World Cup.

Yes, that's right. Scotland qualified for the World Cup and England didn't. What makes this even more incredible, is that this was the second consecutive World Cup this had happened. England missed the World Cup in Germany in 1974 too, whilst the Scots were there. I actually watched Scotland draw with Jugoslavia in Frankfurt in that tournament.

It's amazing how, like Coventry and Forest really, Scotland have fallen so far from this high point. Scotland's current FIFA ranking is 34th in the world and they've averaged 40th since the rankings started in 1992. It goes without saying that in 1974 and 1978 they ranked much higher than that. When you look at their teams at the time they were full of really great - you might even say world class - players.

The team that beat Wales in October was...

Rough, Jardine (Buchan), McQueen, Forsyth, Donachie, Masson, Hartford, Macari, Jordan, Johnston.

Don Masson (with a penalty) and Kenny Dalglish got the goals.

Now that is some team but it will not have escaped the notice of any Forest fan reading this that missing out of that team is John McGovern, John Robertson, Archie Gemmill and... Kenny Burns.

To be fair to Ally MacCoist, three of those four were included in the squad that went to Argentina.

Player of the Year - Kenny Burns

Billy & Kenny

Two days before the Coventry match, the English Player of the Year Award was announced.

The award has been given every year in England by the football writer's association (FWA) since it was first awarded in 1948. By winning this, Kenny Burns joined a pretty elite club of just 29 players including the likes of Stanley Matthews, Tom Finney and Danny Blanchflower, who had won it twice, Bobby Charlton, George Best, Nat Lofthouse, Bobby Moore, Gordon Banks and Kevin Keegan.

In 1968-69 it was jointly awarded to two players: Tony Book and Dave Mackay.

It's also of note that Liverpool players had won the award for three out of the four previous seasons - and would do so again for four out of the next six.

English Players of the Year 1947-1978

It was a truly remarkable season for Kenny Burns. Having spent the previous six years, most recently as a striker, at Birmingham City, Peter Taylor and Brian Clough recruited him specifically to slot into the center of our defence alongside Larry Lloyd. He was the king pin in the best defence in England and, as we'll see later, the best defence in English football history.

Kenny left Forest in 1981 and went to Leeds United for three years, but making just 56 appearances. He then went to play for Derby (and even Notts County on loan) before ending his English professional career at Barnsley in 1986.

Burns' career

One can't help but feel that Burns' mere twenty caps for Scotland really did not do his talent justice but his Scotland boss, Ally MacCoist clearly did not rate him as highly as Brian and Peter did. After all, in Argentina, he was dropped for the third group match against Holland after being picked to play against Peru and Iran.

Kenny Burns and Gary Kelly

After a brief spell playing for IF Elfsborg in Sweden, Kenny returned to England and the place where he was loved most, Nottinghamshire. I still find this hard to believe but in 1986 he started playing for a team whose ground was in my home town, Kirkby-in-Ashfield, on Low Moor Road. The "snipes" (or Sutton Town) used to play in the next town Sutton-in-Ashfield but they had to move when a supermarket was built on their ground.

Kenny Burns and Gary Kelly

What's even more incredible to me is that for the best part of a couple of years Burns played, up front, alongside my mate Gary Kelly. This is the same lad, my fellow "Judas", who abandoned Mansfield to watch Forest and watched Newcastle United fans cheat us out of the F.A. Cup in the 6th round in 1974. Gary also got me a job at Monarch Textiles, just a couple of hundred meters from where Sutton Town played, when I packed in Nottingham University earlier in the season.

I can't find any on-line proof about this but Gary told me they were quite a prolific partnership and scored many goals together. I just wish I'd seen them.

Anyway, it's time to take our place at Highfield Road for the big match.

The Teams

Forest made a couple of changes. Viv Anderson returned in place of Frank Clark. Colin Barrett switched from right back to left. John O'Hare returned for John McGovern. David Needham replaced Larry Lloyd who was suspended. Ian Bowyer swapped places with Archie Gemmill.

For Coventry City Keith Osgood was replaced by Mick Ferguson who had recovered from an ankle injury and Tommy Hutchinson missed his first league game of the season, apparently struck down with gastric flu, being replaced by John Beck.

Coventry City
1 Jim Blyth, 2 Brian Roberts, 3 Bobby McDonald, 4 Terry Yorath, 5 Jim Holton, 6 Mick Coop, 7 Alan Green, 8 Ian Wallace, 9 Mick Ferguson, 10 Barry Powell, 11 John Beck.

Nottingham Forest
1 Peter Shilton, 2 Viv Anderson, 3 Colin Barrett, 4 John O'Hare, 5 David Needham, 6 Kenny Burns, 7 Martin O'Neill, 8 Ian Bowyer, 9 Peter Withe, 10 Archie Gemmill, 11 John Robertson.
Attendance: 36,881

The Game

This was probably the most difficult game Forest had left in their fixture list. Here's the latest prediction list.

Coventry City had one of the best home records in the first division and had scored 48 goals in 20 games. So even though Forest only needed a single point, it was going to be tough. Coventry were in the hunt of a UEFA Cup place so it was more than just a matter of pride for them.

Nearly 37,000 went to the match. It was easily the biggest crowd at Highfield Road that season, swelled by at least 10,000 Forest fans.

Biggest Crowds at Highfield Road 1977-78

This had become the trend for the whole country though, to be honest. Apart from Liverpool, Forest were the team people wanted to see most. I suppose fans everywhere wanted to judge for themselves what this Forest team were all about.

First Division 1977-78 sorted by away average attendance

The Sky Blues started very strongly, attacking the goal where we were stood behind in the first half. Mick Ferguson was continually getting the better of David Needham in the air and brought a "Gordon Banks" save out of Peter Shilton that has become the lasting image of the game.

On the balance of open play, no-one could dispute that Coventry created most chances and probably deserved to win but John Shipley points out that there were a couple of strong penalty claims made by Forest, one of which he argues was pretty clear cut.

But the referee did make one whistle blow that sent Forest fans wild - the final one.

Sadly, just a couple of great saves by Peter Shilton are the only highlights of the match I could find on YouTube.

This clip, even worse, has no sound and is more interested in a pitch invasion by Coventry fans after the match.

Other Matches

Elsewhere, the key matches were in the relegation battle. Critically, Queen's Park Rangers got a massive win at already relegated Newcastle United to take them clear of the relegation zone. West Ham, conversely, were on the receiving end of a 3-0 defeat at Old Trafford which put them perilously close to the drop zone.

Chelsea and Wolves shared the points which kept the whole thing exciting.

Champions!

Forest now slipped to their lowest point in the current form league of the season so far.

Villa and Man Utd hitting form too late

In the second division, Spurs lost again, at home to Sunderland leaving the promotion race still completely open. At the bottom, Mansfield Town got a great win at Blackpool to keep their survival hopes alive.

Champions of England

I can't remember if they played Queen's "We are the Champions" after the match, but they could (and should) have done. The song was released on 7th October 1977. So Forest fans were the first given the opportunity to sing it after winning the league.

Forest were the latest (24th) winners of the first division. Here's a list of champions in descending order of their first title win.

Nottingham Forest, the most recent team to win the league for the first time

This was Forest's 4th major English domestic trophy, putting them 18th in the list of English major trophy winners.

Forest, now the 18th most successful English Club (Major domestic trophies)

If you add all minor (divisional) silverware too, Forest now were the 16th most successful club in English history.

Forest now had won the 16th most silverware (including divisional titles) in England

Looking at the final record of the title winners, Forest's record was definitely one of the best. Specifically it was the 8th best out of 79 title winners, in terms of points and goal difference.

8th best points total ever for English Champions

Looking at that table, one might be drawn to the figure 2.875 - Forest's goal difference. It turns out that this was the second best ever in first division history.

Second best goal average ever

Of course, the reason for that high goal average is the superb defensive record - just 24 goals conceded. When one takes into account the number of games played, it was the best ever. More support for Kenny Burns winning the Player of the Year award.

Forest had the best defensive record ever (in 1978)

Sadly, for Forest fans, it's no longer true that we have the best record ever. It was superseded the very next season by Liverpool - they conceded just 16 goals all season! and again by Arsene Wenger's "Invincible" Arsenal and Jose Mourinho's Chelsea too.

... But not any more

Here's a full list of all the records of all the English champions sorted by the number of points as a percentage of the maximum. 11th best out of 79 is pretty good.

All-time table of champions, sorted by %age points of maximum obtained

The Trophy

Forest had now won all the major domestic trophies. Like Aston Villa, West Bromwich Albion and Manchester City, Forest had won all four, including both F.A. Cup trophies.

The Championship trophy is, in my opinion, the most beautiful trophy we have. Fittingly, it is called "the Lady". It was commissioned in 1891 so Preston North End never held this trophy despite winning the first two league championships. The first winners were therefore Everton. In 1992-93 the trophy was replaced by the new, flashier, Premier League trophy. So that last English first divisions champions to lift the trophy were Leeds United.