Stuart
Well-Known Member
No exactly a team full of stars, but a monumental achievement none the less. He wasn't a bad manager was Cloughie.
The first European final I can remember watching as a kid.
For two seasons at the end of the 1970′s a small English side managed to take centre-stage in Britain and Europe as winners of the European Cup. Nottingham Forest were a predominantly second league team who had enjoyed a few highs and suffered more than a few slides since they were formed in the little town of Nottingham in the mid-1800′s, the place where the legend of Robin Hood is centred.
When Brian Clough took control of the team in 1975 he began to mould them into a fighting team. They were languishing in the doldrums of the Second Division at the time but within 2 seasons the manager had pulled the side up into the First Division (nowadays known as the Premier League) and taken the title. They became one of the few English sides to win the League one year after being promoted from the Second Division. An impressive journey but no-one could have predicted what would happen next.
Having gained access to the European Cup, Forest’s first game was against the current title holders Liverpool. The newcomers took the Champions down 2-1 in the first leg and held them to a goalless draw at Anfield. The group stages saw most of the European heavyweights removed from the competition and the quarter-finals featured only one previously successful team – Glasgow Rangers, whose last semi-final had been 20 years prior.
In the final the English side faced Malmo who were missing some of their most powerful attackers and decided to sit tight in defence and hope for a penalty shoot-out. Forest’s John Robertson (who, the season before had been an unremarkable and overweight Second Division player) succeeded in piercing the Swedish team’s human barricade and passing to Clough’s newest recruit (and the most expensive in English football at the time at 1 million) Trevor Francis, who headed the ball into the net.
They took the Cup back to the Forest and succeeded in qualifying for the following year’s tournament to boot. This competition was the 25th anniversary of the European Cup and the final – between Nottingham and Hamburg - was held in the Bernabeu Stadium in Madrid. Forest were down their star player Francis but still managed to beat the Germans 1-0 after a John Robertson goal. Nottingham Forest wouldn’t touch these heights again and the story remains a European parable about the value of good management and hard graft in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.
The first European final I can remember watching as a kid.
For two seasons at the end of the 1970′s a small English side managed to take centre-stage in Britain and Europe as winners of the European Cup. Nottingham Forest were a predominantly second league team who had enjoyed a few highs and suffered more than a few slides since they were formed in the little town of Nottingham in the mid-1800′s, the place where the legend of Robin Hood is centred.
When Brian Clough took control of the team in 1975 he began to mould them into a fighting team. They were languishing in the doldrums of the Second Division at the time but within 2 seasons the manager had pulled the side up into the First Division (nowadays known as the Premier League) and taken the title. They became one of the few English sides to win the League one year after being promoted from the Second Division. An impressive journey but no-one could have predicted what would happen next.
Having gained access to the European Cup, Forest’s first game was against the current title holders Liverpool. The newcomers took the Champions down 2-1 in the first leg and held them to a goalless draw at Anfield. The group stages saw most of the European heavyweights removed from the competition and the quarter-finals featured only one previously successful team – Glasgow Rangers, whose last semi-final had been 20 years prior.
In the final the English side faced Malmo who were missing some of their most powerful attackers and decided to sit tight in defence and hope for a penalty shoot-out. Forest’s John Robertson (who, the season before had been an unremarkable and overweight Second Division player) succeeded in piercing the Swedish team’s human barricade and passing to Clough’s newest recruit (and the most expensive in English football at the time at 1 million) Trevor Francis, who headed the ball into the net.
They took the Cup back to the Forest and succeeded in qualifying for the following year’s tournament to boot. This competition was the 25th anniversary of the European Cup and the final – between Nottingham and Hamburg - was held in the Bernabeu Stadium in Madrid. Forest were down their star player Francis but still managed to beat the Germans 1-0 after a John Robertson goal. Nottingham Forest wouldn’t touch these heights again and the story remains a European parable about the value of good management and hard graft in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.
