Forest 40 years ago

The 1977-78 season was sliding inexorably to the so-called "pointy-end" (meaning, I think, when things are decided). Forest, top of the first division by four points, after drawing 0-0 at Derby now turned their attention to a League Cup Quarter Final - the first time they'd ever got this far in the tournament. In their way stood third division Bury, who were looking for some cup glory themselves. They had already beaten 4th Division Crewe Alexandra, 3rd Division Oxford United, 2nd Division Millwall, and 1st Division West Bromwich Albion on their way to this quarter final. But, unlike Forest, they'd been here before. In fact if they won, Bury would get to the semi-finals of the League Cup for their second time. Could they do it, or would it be Forest's year? You know the answer but before describing my trip to the match let's pay respect to the long history of Bury F.C. and some of their great historical highlights. The North West is Football Mad ...

40 years ago, the tricky trees were back in league action at our big local rivals, Derby County, after a bit of light relief in the F.A. Cup 3rd round, beating Swindon Town 4-1 . We'd given Derby a good thrashing in Nottingham earlier, 3-0 , in our second home match of the season, but Derby's form had been good lately, so this wasn't going to be easy. Before going to the ram-shackled old Baseball Ground though, I thought I'd have a look at a few related subjects. What is a "local derby" and where did the term come from? Forest and Derby have one of the fiercest rivalries in English football and this kind of tribalism has always interested me. I'll look at the phenomenon through an anthropologist's eye. I'll also take a look at the Derby's original ground, their history, and of course I have to catch a quick glimpse of Cloughie & Taylor's time there and try to answer a sad comment from Peter Taylor about the relative merits of Nottingh...