Gunned down at Highbury

Forest's flying start to the 1977-78 season (including their 5-0 win against West Ham in the League Cup in midweek) came crashing to the ground on their first visit to London back in the top flight. Following on from their opening game at Goodison Park, at Everton, a club currently in their 63rd consecutive season in the English first division, Forest's second away trip was to Arsenal - the only team even more established there than that.

Highbury

Arsenal's amazing run at the top

Arsenal have only been relegated once, in 1912-1913. They have just started their 102nd consecutive season in the top flight and when they met Forest 40 years ago they were in an even more dominant position over us than they are now now.

In the 61 seasons Arsenal had been in the top flight, they had an average position of 8.4, only bettered by Aston Villa (8.2) and Liverpool (8.3) and only Liverpool had won the title more than them. Arsenal had the highest points average however.

English First Division 1888-1977 Sorted by Pts/Game

In the 75 seasons before, Forest had finished above Arsenal only 16 times (21% of seasons) and all but three of those were before the first world war. Forest had a head start, having been founded earlier, joined the football league earlier and reached the first division earlier. Arsenal even got their red shirts from Forest - the original reds. But once Arsenal won promotion to the first division in 1904-05, finishing 10th, they never looked back and Forest would struggle to even compete with them again. In 1937-38, when Arsenal won their 5th title, they finished 41 places above Forest who finished 20th in the second division.

From 1905, Arsenal's domination over Forest was almost total

Apart from their 8 titles, Arsenal had also won the F. A. Cup 4 times, winning the double in 1970-71 and won the Fairs Cup in 1969-70.

Clough & Taylor's Forest Top of the League

Despite all that history, Forest were top of the league and were full of confidence. I went to Highbury (my 34th English league ground visited, for my 222nd match) on Forestrail feeling that Forest could beat anyone but at the same time we had that ingrained English feeling that failure was bound to happen sooner or later. And so it turned out.

We stood on the (then) open "Clock End" at the historic, classic 30s style Highbury stadium and waited for another taste of top flight English football.

At last, we had the chance to see the famous "North Bank" - the fabled end of Arsenal fans we'd been singing about for years...

Bertie Mee talking to Bill Shankly,

Have you heard of the North Bank, Highbury?

Bill says "No, I don't think so..."

"... But I've heard of the Trent End Boot Boys!"

Singing it made me feel 'hard', despite even the thought of being a "boot boy" making me feel sick. I sang along with them for the "atmosphere" but hated any thought of the violence. I have only had one "fight" in my life and that was arranged to sort out a lunch time bet. I think it was Marshy who said "I bet Chris Plackett would beat you in a fight" I doubted it so we had to go through with the silly ritual which wasn't at all like McGregor v Mayweather. It lasted about 30 seconds and, I claimed victory only for Chris to dispute it, showing pinch marks in his arm as evidence of foul play.

Arsenal were, as always, full of stars, including Malcolm "supermac" MacDonald, Liam Brady and Pat Jennings. MacDonald had signed from Newcastle for exactly one third of a million pounds the season before and paid back a big slice of that with 25 league goals the season before, even though Arsenal finished only 8th. Although this might sound poor from today's perspective, the previous two seasons Arsenal had actually flirted with relegation, finishing 16th and 17th. So, just two seasons before this one was their worst since 1924-25. Crowds at Highbury correspondingly had dropped alarmingly. Only 14,477 turned up for their home league game against Sheffield United on 31st January 1976, for instance - Arsenal fans, eh? 

Thanks to video technology, I remember this game extremely well (if you believe that, you'll believe anything!) It's funny the tricks memory plays on you. When I watch the video of the match it does seem familiar but if that video didn't exist I am sure that I wouldn't remember anything apart from a dream-like blurry image of standing on the clock end.

Liam Brady

I suppose the key moments in the game were Frank Stapleton's early header that looped too easily into the back of the net over our goalkeeper John Middleton and a glimpse of Kenny Burns' potential thuggery that gave Arsenal a penalty - slotted in too easily past Middleton by Liam Brady - to seal their victory. Burns was lucky to just pick up a yellow card. As the TV coverage shows, he should have been sent off earlier after head-butting Ritchie Powling - missed by the officials. 

The video also shows John McGovern was clearly angry with Burns after he gave away the penalty. These were problems that Brain Clough and Peter Taylor fixed though, as we were to find out in the next few weeks. Burns got an earful from Cloughie and a big fine, if I remember rightly.

It has to be said that 3-0 was a bit flattering to Arsenal though. On the overall play Forest seemed to match Arsenal and went close on a number of occasions. It was a bad day at the office, as they say.

Middleton beaten too easily

"Stitch that, Tommy!"

Bad Boy Burns

The Teams

Arsenal
1 Pat Jennings, 2 Pat Rice, 3 Sammy Nelson, 4 Ritche Powling, 5 David O'Leary, 6 Willie Young, 7 Liam Brady, 8 Trevor Ross, 9 Malcom MacDonald, 10 Frank Stapleton, 11 Graham Rix.
Goals: Liam Brady 1 (pen.), Frank Stapleton 2.

Nottingham Forest
1 John Middleton, 2 Viv Anderson, 3 Frank Clark, 4 John McGovern, 5 Larry Lloyd, 6 Kenny Burns, 7 Martin O'Neill, 8 Ian Bowyer, 9 Peter Withe, 10 Tony Woodcock, 11 John Robertson.
Substitutions: Colin Barrett(12) came on for Frank Clark (3).

This was also the first time the team had to be changed. I think Frank Clark must have picked up a knock with Colin Barrett coming on as substitute.

The Match

Here's ten minutes of the action, brought to you by the comforting tones of Brian Moore from ITV's "The Big Match".

Of course, we'd have the last laugh. Over the next 13 years, Forest would actually dominate over Arsenal. If only those days could return...

Cumulative First Division Table 1977-1991

The Latest Historical Chart

Other Matches that Day

Manchester City took over at the top of the table after a 4-0 thrashing of Norwich City. Liverpool and Manchester United both also secured 1-0 away wins to push Forest down into 4th place, the lowest they'd be all season.

Next up for Forest, another away game at last season's second division champions and fellow promoted side, Wolverhampton Wanderers, at Moleneux.

Match Day Program

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Chris Beaumont for spotting an error in the Forest team.