It had to happen eventually and, with a degree of inevitable dread, I witnessed the end of Forest's amazing 42 match unbeaten run in the first division at the cauldron of hate (for Forest anyway) that is Anfield. (Thanks Boro!)
40 years ago today, on 9th December 1978, I drove my dad's car from Kirkby-in-Ashfield to the Scouse Republic of Crime, with fear in my heart and a Liverpool badge sewn onto my red and white Forest scarf, with four (not three) unlikely passengers (well two very unlikely ones and two (not one) that was bound to have qualified sooner or later.)
We escaped with our lives, my dad's car unscathed, but Forest's spell over the mighty mighty Liverpool seemed, at the time, to have died a death.
As this was my 48th ground visited, and I've already written five blog posts about bloody Liverpool, I'm focusing on Anfield a bit here, as well as the matches that happened around that time, including a bit of international history for a Forest favourite. I'll include a bit of Christmas time pop music and a look to the following years of Liverpool domination under Paisley, Fagan and Dalglish which would put us firmly back in our place having dared to challenge them at the peak of English and European football for a few years.
Previously: Bolton Away
For us the journey wasn't too bad, just a jaunt down the M1 for Chesterfield (aka Steve Armstead) in his mini van. I think Boro and Pompey (you get the idea of what our mates were about!?) went with us that day.
... and here's the report in the Guardian...
Only five first division games were played that day...
Frank Worthington's brace at QPR took him clear as the First Division's top goal scorer.
'So, Liverpool dropped to 9th place in the current (last 3/home/away) form table...
So, that was it. Next up, a tasty trip to Liverpool to see if Forest's unbeaten run could withstand another barrage from the Merseysiders who were desperate to beat us now, especially, as their form had collapsed a little and they'd been knocked out of both cups they'd played in.
He formed a new club to play at the ground and even applied to the F.A. to use the name, Everton, too. Thankfully, the Football Association resisted so Liverpool had to work their way into the league from outside. A journey that didn't take long, of course. Everton had been formed in 1878 (13 years after Forest) and Liverpool began four years after that.
They only played one season outside the league, in the Lancashire combination and won immediate promotion to the top tier. All this is covered more fully in my previous blogs on Liverpool. (see below).
Forest played on this ground for the first time on 12th January 1895 and got hammered 5-0 in the league. Just over a month later, though, we returned to play them in the Cup and won 2-0. Forest also won the return leg in the league, at Parkside (Forest's 3rd out 5 grounds.)
The ground built up its capacity with a massive open end called the Spion Kop.
Forest had slightly the better record over Liverpool in the first 30-odd encounters before the First World War. Forest won 13 times to Liverpool's 12 with six drawn. But Forest goals total was 41 goals to Liverpool's 46, thanks mainly to a whopping 7-3 win at Anfield in 1910.
Between the wars, as we Forest fans have only learned too well, it all went pear shaped for us, whereas Liverpool enjoyed one of their many good periods, winning the league twice.
Forest only played Liverpool six times between the war, and lost the lot.
Played 6, lost 6. Goals for 4, against 14.
After the war, Liverpool enjoyed a few good years, notably winning their fifth league title in the first season back, while Forest struggled in the third tier for a while. But the clubs' fortunes turned in the mid 1950s and Liverpool went through their worst period in their history.
Ironically, Liverpool were just a pretty mediocre mid -table side in the 1951-52 season, when Anfield recorded it's highest ever attendance, 61,905 for the visit of Wolverhampton Wanderers (also mid table at the time) in the F.A. Cup tie on February 2nd.
They actually got relegated in 1953-54 and spent eight years in the second tier. Forest, meanwhile had a great period including winning the F.A. Cup for the second time.
For six season, from 1956-57 until 1961-62, Forest finished above Liverpool in the league. But, alas, that was soon to change when a certain Bill Shankly took over and led the club back to the top flight and onto unprecedented success.
Under Shankly, Liverpool enjoyed the most success they'd had up to that point in their history. It has to be said that his record wasn't quite as good as that of Don Revie at Leeds United though.
By the time I went, the ground was looking pretty much like this...
So, post-war, there had been an ebbing and a flowing of form between the two clubs. The first nine, from 1948 to 1957, went Liverpool's way with Forest only winning 2 to Liverpool's 6 with one draw. Liverpool scored 23 to Forest's 11. This included Liverpool beating Forest 4-1 in the F.A. Cup in 1948, their seventh consecutive win against us.
From 1962 to 1966, through the next nine, Forest were slightly on top, however, with three wins to Liverpool's two with four draws. Forest scored 11 against Liverpool's 12.
The last eleven games, from 1966 to 1971, went Liverpool's way again, with Forest winning only two to Liverpool's eight with just one draw. Forest only scored eight to Liverpool's 23.
But, as we know, since Brian Clough and Peter Taylor came to Nottingham, things changed quite dramatically between the clubs and the tide had most certainly turned again in our favour.
Forest had played Liverpool five times since our return to the top flight and not lost yet, although three were drawn.
Click on the links below to reminisce about those games.
Almost a year ago Forest played Liverpool at home on Boxing Day on our way to that dramatic league title win. At the time Paul McCartney's Wings topped the Charts with Mull of Kintyre. As every Forest fan, knows, this became our "anthem" and is sung with a passion as much today as then.
I just wish that when Forest fans are away they'd modify the lyric a little.
"City Ground, Oh Mist Rolling in from, The Trent"
"My Desire, is always to be THERE (not here)"
When I was at Burton Albion's Pirelli Stadium a few weeks ago, they sang "Here". As a Forest fan pointed out, we were actually by the Trent there too, but the point remains. At Elland Road, and everywhere else, it should be "THERE", surely.
Of course, one can't do a blog about Anfield without a rendition of that song. Y'know...
I actually love this clip, from the 1960s more...
It's funny that, bizarrely, my local club now, Perth Glory, adopted a Beatles song as their own recently. After seeing Spanish "marquee" player, Diego Castro score a goal in front of the shed after a mazey twist and dribble from the left, everyone in the "Glory Shed" quite spontaneously started singing "Twist and Shout!"
Anyway, back in 1978, coming up to Christmas, what was No 1 at the time of the Anfield defeat... ?
Here are the other blog posts I have done about Liverpool since Forest's promotion...
So, enough history, let's get this over with...
Forest had a pretty depleted squad with Kenny Burns, Martin O'Neill and Tony Woodcock all missing. Steve Elliott stepped in, in place of Woodcock for what would be his last ever game for Forest.
Liverpool, by contrast, were at full strength. This looked very ominous.
Again, sadly, I couldn't find any film footage of the game on YouTube, but here's the report from the Guardian.
And another from the Observer...
Everton's win at Birmingham put them top of the current form league and West Brom's 2-0 win against Middlesbrough kept them in touch at the top of the table. Chelsea and Wolves continued their dreadful form and were looking increasingly likely to drop back to the second tier.
So, Liverpool pulled even further away from Forest in the league. The gap between us now seven points, the margin we'd won the league last season, and here we were after just 17 games.
Here's the current form table from that night. Forest drop to 7th place.
And here's the moment I've been dreading all season... the day Liverpool overtook us in the 1977-1979 combined table. Our league dominance over Liverpool was over already.
So here's the 42 match unbeaten run again. Notice this was John Robertson's 110th consecutive match - still not even half way through his own personal run.
Still, as Cloughie said to the media after the match... "I congratulated our lads on a magnificent run. This defeat means a slight relief - but we would have felt better if we hadn't lost."
It's a pretty depressing thought, then, that despite Forest having the best period in their history, they were completely eclipsed by Liverpool during this time as Liverpool were having the best period any English club has ever had.
Anyway, Liverpool do seem to be heading in the right direction again these days (if you're a Liverpool fan) and perhaps this season, or soon, they might end their almost twenty-year drought of league titles. Don't you feel so sorry for them?
40 years ago today, on 9th December 1978, I drove my dad's car from Kirkby-in-Ashfield to the Scouse Republic of Crime, with fear in my heart and a Liverpool badge sewn onto my red and white Forest scarf, with four (not three) unlikely passengers (well two very unlikely ones and two (not one) that was bound to have qualified sooner or later.)
We escaped with our lives, my dad's car unscathed, but Forest's spell over the mighty mighty Liverpool seemed, at the time, to have died a death.
As this was my 48th ground visited, and I've already written five blog posts about bloody Liverpool, I'm focusing on Anfield a bit here, as well as the matches that happened around that time, including a bit of international history for a Forest favourite. I'll include a bit of Christmas time pop music and a look to the following years of Liverpool domination under Paisley, Fagan and Dalglish which would put us firmly back in our place having dared to challenge them at the peak of English and European football for a few years.
Previously: Bolton Away
Big Freeze Hits England
Winter was approaching and one of those distinct "cold snaps" hit England at the end of November.
We had something to cheer us up in Nottingham though as Forest players continued to make history.
Four days after Forest broke the English football league record by going 42 league games unbeaten (with a 1-0 win at Bolton) Viv Anderson, our spidery full back, who had made 121 appearances for us already at the age of just 22, was set to win his first full England cap.
Viv Anderson wins a Full England Cap
The significance of this seems bizarre from today's eyes. Anderson's was actually the very first full England cap awarded to a colored fellah. It has to be said, it was only a friendly, against Czechosolovakia, but it still counts of course.
Here's a (rather poor) clip of the game (apologies for the music!) I can't spot Viv but it's interesting to see the icy surface at Wembley.
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| Anderson making History for England |
Viv was interviewed on the BBC about this recently. He is a lovey chap, is Viv, and a very talented footballer too. I am amazed that he only made another 29 appearances for England after this, especially as he made almost 600 league appearances for several top clubs.
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| Viv was almost always a red |
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The Big Freeze Stops Most League Games
The Saturday after this, with the cold weather intensifying, the football league programme was severely hit with 34 games being called off in England and Scotland.
I was looking forward to watching Forest play Chelsea at home and surely wrap up another two points to keep the pressure on Liverpool but the game was another of the day's casualties.
This might have been the end of my football interest of the day but, by now, I had started to get involved with a group of football fanatics and we were determined to use the opportunity to go to a new ground.
Match 288: Northampton Town 0 Portsmouth 2 (1st game at the County Ground, 2nd time seen Northampton, 4th time Portsmouth)
The nearest league game still on at a ground that none of us had been to was the Fourth Division clash between Northampton Town and Portsmouth. Northampton were well embedded in the bottom tier having been there nine out of the ten previous seasons - a run that started just four years after they were amazingly in the top flight - for just one season. Portsmouth, meanwhile, were looking for immediate promotion back to the Third tier after their relegation and were well placed on the day. Thousands of Pompey fans made the long journey north to see them win 2-0.
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| The table on the morning of the match. Portsmouth went second after this win |
For us the journey wasn't too bad, just a jaunt down the M1 for Chesterfield (aka Steve Armstead) in his mini van. I think Boro and Pompey (you get the idea of what our mates were about!?) went with us that day.
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| Cobblers to it - we're off to Northampton! |
This was my 47th league ground and definitely one of the worst. Northampton's County Ground was shared with Northamptonshire Cricket Club and had stands only on three sides, rather like Bramall Lane in the old days.
Portsmouth actually reached the top spot in January but their form suffered from there and they ended in seventh place.
Other matches
The big match of the day was at Highbury where Arsenal did us a big favour by beating Liverpool 1-0 to inflict the second league defeat of the season on them.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find any footage of the match but here's the programme...
... and here's the report in the Guardian...
Only five first division games were played that day...
The league table looked like this, with Liverpool still top, of course, but now having played one more, Everton could theoretically narrow their lead to just one point.
Frank Worthington's brace at QPR took him clear as the First Division's top goal scorer.
'So, Liverpool dropped to 9th place in the current (last 3/home/away) form table...
Match 289 : Nottingham Forest 2 Dynamo Zagreb 0 (148th at the City Ground , Nottingham Forest 209, Dynamo Zagreb 1)
Without a competitive game for two weeks, Forest organised a friendly against the then leaders of the Yugoslav league, Dynamo Zagreb on cold, foggy Trentside on the Tuesday night. It was a cold miserable night, if I remember rightly
5,338 braved the cold to come down to watch Forest win 2-0 with both goals bagged by Gary Birtles.
So, that was it. Next up, a tasty trip to Liverpool to see if Forest's unbeaten run could withstand another barrage from the Merseysiders who were desperate to beat us now, especially, as their form had collapsed a little and they'd been knocked out of both cups they'd played in.
Trip to Anfield
So this is the sixth blog I've done about bloody Liverpool now, and I still haven't really done anything about Anfield. So, as I actually went to this one I'll put that right with some nice old images of the ground as it was developed after the greedy rich owner of the ground ripped off poor old Everton, (the original club to play there, remember) and formed his own club.
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| Yes... we know. |
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| Unfortunately... |
Anfield over the Years
Anfield was of course, originally... home of Everton, until they finished second in the league when the greedy landlord John Houlding doubled their rent and caused them to find a new ground.
He formed a new club to play at the ground and even applied to the F.A. to use the name, Everton, too. Thankfully, the Football Association resisted so Liverpool had to work their way into the league from outside. A journey that didn't take long, of course. Everton had been formed in 1878 (13 years after Forest) and Liverpool began four years after that.
They only played one season outside the league, in the Lancashire combination and won immediate promotion to the top tier. All this is covered more fully in my previous blogs on Liverpool. (see below).
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| John Houlding - Greedy Bastard |
Forest played on this ground for the first time on 12th January 1895 and got hammered 5-0 in the league. Just over a month later, though, we returned to play them in the Cup and won 2-0. Forest also won the return leg in the league, at Parkside (Forest's 3rd out 5 grounds.)
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| Anfield in 1903 |
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| Liverpool's Spion Kop in 1906 |
Several English grounds named "big ends" after this infamous battle in the Boer War in 1900 where the British fought the Afrikaans.
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| Jy sal nooit Spioenkop neem nie! |
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| Pre-War, Forest were were top dogs over Liverpool |
Between the wars, as we Forest fans have only learned too well, it all went pear shaped for us, whereas Liverpool enjoyed one of their many good periods, winning the league twice.
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| Anfield 1923 - The Kop was still uncovered |
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| The Kop gets a roof in 1928 |
Forest only played Liverpool six times between the war, and lost the lot.
Played 6, lost 6. Goals for 4, against 14.
After the war, Liverpool enjoyed a few good years, notably winning their fifth league title in the first season back, while Forest struggled in the third tier for a while. But the clubs' fortunes turned in the mid 1950s and Liverpool went through their worst period in their history.
Ironically, Liverpool were just a pretty mediocre mid -table side in the 1951-52 season, when Anfield recorded it's highest ever attendance, 61,905 for the visit of Wolverhampton Wanderers (also mid table at the time) in the F.A. Cup tie on February 2nd.
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| Biggest ever Anfield crowd, F.A. Cup 4th Round tie v Wolves in 1952 |
They actually got relegated in 1953-54 and spent eight years in the second tier. Forest, meanwhile had a great period including winning the F.A. Cup for the second time.
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| Floodlights at Anfield in 1957 |
For six season, from 1956-57 until 1961-62, Forest finished above Liverpool in the league. But, alas, that was soon to change when a certain Bill Shankly took over and led the club back to the top flight and onto unprecedented success.
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| Anfield in 1962 |
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| Shankly at Anfield in 1964 |
Under Shankly, Liverpool enjoyed the most success they'd had up to that point in their history. It has to be said that his record wasn't quite as good as that of Don Revie at Leeds United though.
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| The Kemlyn Road Stand, Added in 1970 |
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| The New Main Stand, added in 1973 |
By the time I went, the ground was looking pretty much like this...
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| Anfield in 1977 |
So, post-war, there had been an ebbing and a flowing of form between the two clubs. The first nine, from 1948 to 1957, went Liverpool's way with Forest only winning 2 to Liverpool's 6 with one draw. Liverpool scored 23 to Forest's 11. This included Liverpool beating Forest 4-1 in the F.A. Cup in 1948, their seventh consecutive win against us.
From 1962 to 1966, through the next nine, Forest were slightly on top, however, with three wins to Liverpool's two with four draws. Forest scored 11 against Liverpool's 12.
The last eleven games, from 1966 to 1971, went Liverpool's way again, with Forest winning only two to Liverpool's eight with just one draw. Forest only scored eight to Liverpool's 23.
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| Forest v Liverpool 1948-1971 (W 7 D 7 L 16 F 30 A 58.) |
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| League Summary |
But, as we know, since Brian Clough and Peter Taylor came to Nottingham, things changed quite dramatically between the clubs and the tide had most certainly turned again in our favour.
Forest had played Liverpool five times since our return to the top flight and not lost yet, although three were drawn.
Click on the links below to reminisce about those games.
Almost a year ago Forest played Liverpool at home on Boxing Day on our way to that dramatic league title win. At the time Paul McCartney's Wings topped the Charts with Mull of Kintyre. As every Forest fan, knows, this became our "anthem" and is sung with a passion as much today as then.
I just wish that when Forest fans are away they'd modify the lyric a little.
"City Ground, Oh Mist Rolling in from, The Trent"
"My Desire, is always to be THERE (not here)"
When I was at Burton Albion's Pirelli Stadium a few weeks ago, they sang "Here". As a Forest fan pointed out, we were actually by the Trent there too, but the point remains. At Elland Road, and everywhere else, it should be "THERE", surely.
Of course, one can't do a blog about Anfield without a rendition of that song. Y'know...
I actually love this clip, from the 1960s more...
It's funny that, bizarrely, my local club now, Perth Glory, adopted a Beatles song as their own recently. After seeing Spanish "marquee" player, Diego Castro score a goal in front of the shed after a mazey twist and dribble from the left, everyone in the "Glory Shed" quite spontaneously started singing "Twist and Shout!"
Anyway, back in 1978, coming up to Christmas, what was No 1 at the time of the Anfield defeat... ?
Here are the other blog posts I have done about Liverpool since Forest's promotion...
So, enough history, let's get this over with...
Match 290 : Liverpool 2 Nottingham Forest 0 (1st at Anfield, Liverpool 8th time, Nottingham Forest 209)
I drove to this match in my Dad's relatively new car. I am ashamed that I didn't quite let on how scared I was about driving it into the Socialist Scouse Republic and parking it in the middle of Stanley Park but somehow we managed to get away with it.
My fellow travelers that day were an odd bunch. At least two of them were. Regular readers will not be surprised to hear that, for the second week running, I went to a match with Boro, my old mate from Nottingham University (or Jake, the mate who'd helped me stay safe at White Hart Lane a few weeks earlier - but who I'd embarrassingly forgot that came with us that day). But you'd never guess the other two in a million years. One was another Boro fan, from Sherwood Hall, called Andy but truth be known he didn't seem very much of a fan and spoke with a bit of a posh accent. Still I think he helped with the petrol money. The other lad wasn't posh at all and had a deep west country droll. Trowbridge (as we ingeniously called him for obvious reasons) didn't seem much of a football fan at all and wasn't aware of what this adventure was really all about as he wore his "Nottingham University" T-shirt as we got out of the car. We managed to persuade him to put under a semi-transparent rain coat which made it just slightly less obvious.
EEK!
We tried to mingle in with the locals and even went to a pub for a quick one, hoping that no-one would speak to us.
So, off to the match, then!
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| Anfield - 48th Ground Visited |
The Programme
The Anfield Review always was great value for money. Plenty of material and great photos.
Forest had a pretty depleted squad with Kenny Burns, Martin O'Neill and Tony Woodcock all missing. Steve Elliott stepped in, in place of Woodcock for what would be his last ever game for Forest.
Liverpool, by contrast, were at full strength. This looked very ominous.
Teams
Liverpool
1 Ray Clemence, 2 Phil Neal, 3 Alan Kennedy, 4 Phil Thompson, 5 Ray Kennedy, 6 Alan Hansen, 7 Kenny Dalglish, 8 Jimmy Case, 9 Steve Heighway, 10 Terry McDermott, 11 Graeme Souness.
Goals: Terry McDermott 2 (1 pen.).
Nottingham Forest
1 Peter Shilton, 2 Viv Anderson, 3 Frank Clark, 4 David Needham, 5 Larry Lloyd, 6 Ian Bowyer, 7 Archie Gemmill, 8 John McGovern, 9 Steve Elliott, 10 Gary Birtles, 11 John Robertson.
Attendance: 51,469
We stood down the side of the Main Stand near the half way line - the same strategy I did at Upton Park. It did work but it was very frightening as the ground was literally packed and we were squashed next to hundreds of Scousers who must have known we were not local.
Boro apparently tried to have a chat with one of them, offering that he'd come to see the best two teams in England.
"Fuck off! There's only one great team, wach!" Came the harsh reply.
I'd carefully sewn onto my Red and White vertically stripped Forest scarf an unmistakable Liverpool badge which I wore prominently at all times. I wish I still had it but I think I left it on a train one day.
I must admit it came as a bit of a relief when Liverpool scored and then added a second, as I think we would have been in big trouble if Forest had sneaked another win that day.
After the match, I quickly placed my scarf, badge facing up, prominently in the back of the car so any would-be hooligan passing by would see it and I'm sure it saved my dad's car from getting damaged as there were lots of them roaming around between cars looking for Forest fans to beat up.
I must say, I'm not really keen to ever go back to Anfield after this experience.
Again, sadly, I couldn't find any film footage of the game on YouTube, but here's the report from the Guardian.
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| Shilton looks on as Liverpool take the lead in front of the Kop |
And another from the Observer...
Other results
Manchester United moved into their highest position for a while when they won 3-1 at the Baseball Ground, coming back from behind to win 3-1.
Here are the thrilling highlights with commentary from Hugh Johns. Andy Ritchie scored his first two league goals, past our old keeper, John Middleton, for United in his first game of the season.
So, Liverpool pulled even further away from Forest in the league. The gap between us now seven points, the margin we'd won the league last season, and here we were after just 17 games.
Another goal from Frank Worthington kept him top of the pile. Robbo remained our top scorer.
Here's the current form table from that night. Forest drop to 7th place.
And here's the moment I've been dreading all season... the day Liverpool overtook us in the 1977-1979 combined table. Our league dominance over Liverpool was over already.
So here's the 42 match unbeaten run again. Notice this was John Robertson's 110th consecutive match - still not even half way through his own personal run.
Still, as Cloughie said to the media after the match... "I congratulated our lads on a magnificent run. This defeat means a slight relief - but we would have felt better if we hadn't lost."
What Happened Next?
What happened next? Liverpool completely dominated English football, that's what.
They'd just won the title three times in the past six years and now they were about to dominate the league even more.
In the next twelve seasons, Liverpool would win the league no less than NINE times.
At no time before, or since, has one club dominated the English league so much as that.
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| Boring League |
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| Liverpool had won Over 20% of all Title Wins in 1991 |
Anfield got better during this period.
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| All-seater Kop after Hillsborough |
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| Anfield and Goodison separated by Stanley Park |
It's a pretty depressing thought, then, that despite Forest having the best period in their history, they were completely eclipsed by Liverpool during this time as Liverpool were having the best period any English club has ever had.
However, despite this setback at Anfield, we'd still go three more games against them without defeat. This would be Liverpool's only victory against us in ten matches. A remarkable record considering how dominant Liverpool were at the time.
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| We'll never be mastered, by you Scouser ... |
And here are the rest of Forest's games v Liverpool games in full. We still haven't played them once in this millennium!
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| ... oh. Ok, then. Maybe we will, then. |
So, looking back, even the great period of Clough and Taylor ranks below three of Liverpool's great managerial teams. Bob Paisley must be the best with an incredible return of over one and a half trophy wins per season for nine years and 70% points return. Joe Fagan and Kenny Dalglish aren't far behind.
However, Liverpool's amazing reign at the pinnacle of English football was about to come to an end, as they'd be overtaken by an even more impressive manager in the shape of Alex Ferguson.
1989-90 is still the last year Liverpool won the league even today. Since then, rather than a return to an the open league we used to have, we've had another period of even greater dominance by another massive North-West club, Manchester United.
From 1992-93 until 2012-13, that's 21 seasons, Manchester United would win the league 13 times. So putting the two periods together, it has to make this the most closed period in English league history.
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| From 1972 until 2013 almost 60% of English League titles were won by one of just two clubs |
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| Who ate all the pie? ... the big fat greedy clubs |
Anyway, Liverpool do seem to be heading in the right direction again these days (if you're a Liverpool fan) and perhaps this season, or soon, they might end their almost twenty-year drought of league titles. Don't you feel so sorry for them?
Maybe this is what Anfield might look like soon.... (yawn, another soul-less stadium.)
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