Retro Game - Forest

First of all, apologies for no looking back at games against Plymouth Argyle. I would have done the 3-0 home victory in the 1990/91 season as games against Plymouth at home recently have been ones to send even the most optimistic owl to sleep. 

Anyway today, its time to go back to the last century and our match in the premier league against Brian Clough's Nottingham Forest. This was to be Cloughie's last season as Nottingham Forest manager before retirement after serving as manager for 18 years. Everything he did for that club was remarkable and one of the reasons why I would rank Nottingham Forest as being one of, if not the biggest club outside the premier league with the likes of Leeds, Wednesday and Newcastle.

Now this fixture was a strange one as we had only just played Nottingham Forest on the second game of the season where two David Hirst strikes sealed a 2-0 victory for the Owls. Nottingham Forest were on an awful run and had lost 5 on the bounce including a 5-3 defeat against Oldham Athletic. It was argued that the sale of Teddy Sheringham to Tottenham didn't help, and later on this season, Roy Keane would also be heading out of The City Ground to Old Trafford. Two extremely key players that Forest sadly could not replace.

Nottingham Forest lined up as follows

Mark Crossley, Brian Laws, Stuart Pearce, Carl Tiler, Steve Chettle, Gary Crosby, Roy Keane, Scott Gemmill, Kingsley Black, Bigel Clough, Gary Bannister

Subs: Martin McKinnon, Theodur Orlygsson

Sheffield Wednesday lined up as follows

Chris Woods, Viv Anderson, Nigel Worthington, Peter Shirtliff, Carlton Palmer, Chris Bart Williams, John Harkes, Graham Hyde, Chris Waddle, Mark Bright, Paul Warhurst

Subs: Danny Wilson, Gordon Watson

Back in the day, only 2 subs were allowed and goalkeepers being subs was very very rare.
Anyway the referee was Gerald Ashby from Worcester. I remember Mr Ashby very well and always thought he was a decent referee with the likes of Roger Milford and Keith Hackett. If anyone mentions Keiran Barratt to me, don't! I absolutely despise everything about that referee. Never have I seen so many blatent fouls not been called for. To this day I wonder if John Jensen gave him a bung during the FA Cup final matches against Arsenal.

Wednesday came into this match on the back of a 3-0 thumping by Manchester City which saw the first back pass pick up being called a foul. The back pass rule was invented for this year and for Man City's first goal, the ref adjudged Roland Nilssons touch back to Chris Woods as a back pass. Two David White goals and Mick Sheron I think consigned Wednesday to their first home defeat of the season. Anyways for this game, Wednesday were giving a debut to Mark Bright, signed from Crystal Palace in exchange for Paul Williams. For the young ones here, it is the same Mark Bright that is now up there with plenty competing for the worst pundit on TV.

From the humiliation against Man City, Francis made plenty of changes for this game, with Carlton Palmer going to centre back and Paul Warhurst playing up front along side Mark Bright. Danny Wilson dropped to the bench as Graham Hyde came in. John Sheridan was supsended for this match while Nilsson and Hirst were injured.

Anyway The Owls started this match well and took the game to Nottingham Forest from the off. You could tell Forest were lacking in confidence and Mark Bright almost opened his account with a goal in the 7th minute. Lovely movement from Bart Williams enabled Waddle to pick a pass out to Bright causing havoc in the Forest defence but Brights shot was comfortably saved by Crossley. 5 minutes later, some excellent overlapping play from Worthington easily beat his man (Brian Laws) and put in a beautiful cross only for Warhursts powerful header to go the wrong side of the net.

Nottingham Forest were clearly struggling and rarely threatened Chris Woods's goal. There was danger for Wednesday when Hyde needlessly gave away a free kick 30 yards from Wednesdays goal. As expected, Stuart Pearce struck a pile driver which only just went past the post with Chris Woods well beaten. Moments later, Nigel Clough beat the offside trap but shot tamely at Woods leaving Bannister fuming as a ball across would have resulted in an empty net for him. Moments later, Wednesday should have gone in front had it not been for some excellent goalkeeping by Crossley. John Harkes struck a long range effort forcing Crossley to make an excellent save to his left, enabling the rebound to fall to Warhurst who did a defenders finish by putting the rebound high and wide. Well that's what we thought but Ashby gave a corner and replays on the Match Of The Day screen proved Crossley got a touch to it. The resulting corner saw Shirtliff head over the bar from close range.

Well you could sense a goal was coming and so it did. A lovely through ball from Waddle saw a race for the ball between Warhurst and Chettle. Warhurst stretched his leg the furthest and struck a low shot below Crossley into the net to give Wednesday the lead. It was no more than The Owls deserved and Warhurst had scored his first goal as a striker. It could have been 2 seconds later as a poor pass from Crosby gave Warhurst the ball but struck from well outside the area high and wide. The half time whistle came with Wednesday leading at the break 1-0

You would have thought Forest would come out with guns firing but the second half was very similar to the first half. Wednesday were outplaying Forest with ease. Brian Clough was getting stressed out thinking what could he do to improve things. 4 minutes in, Bright almost scored on his debut but saw his shot go just past the post. Waddle nearly scored his first goal for the club with a long range effort curling just wide of the post. Palmer had a header from a corner cleared off the line by a young Kingsley Black. It was one way traffic. It only took 12 minutes for Wednesday to get their second goal, this time from a set piece. Waddle put in a lovely delivery which Chettle cleared poorly. The ball came out to John Harkes who fired a shot in low which deflected off a Forest player into the path of Graham Hyde who struck his shot into the net to give Wednesday a 2-0 lead.

Now many people have Hyde as one of those players of do you like or do you not like. For me Graham Hyde was a midfield worker. Someone who goes around doing the dirty work - a bit like what James O Connor/Sean McAllister are doing for those young un's out there. When Carlton Palmer was signed, this was his sort of job in the midfield. Hyde did this job well I thought but always had players ahead of him that had a bit more quality about them. Hydey always chipped in with a few goals from time to time as well.

Anyway Wednesday continued to play entertaining football wiping Forest off the pitch, and in the 61st minute, they almost got their 3rd when a poor clearance from Stuart Pearce of all people gave Bart Williams a tough shot which only went just wide. The angle was tight and the Bart Man was leaning back but his effort wasn't that far away. Mark Bright thought he gave Wednesday a 3-0 lead but his effort was correctly ruled out for offside. It seemed everything was up until the last 10 minutes when Forest burst to life. Gary Crosby almost scored with his effort that cannonned off the underside of the bar and then Nigel Clough almost got one back when his header forced Woods into an excellent save. Forest did get their goal back in the 87th minute when a corner from Pearce was poorly dealt with by the Wednedsay defence and ex Owl Gary Bannister forced the ball home for 2-1. You would have thought Forest would go all guns blazing with only a few minutes remaining but Wednesday saw the game out with ease and in fact should have won 3-1 but Gordon Watsons effort went wide when it was easier to score.

The final whistle came with Wednesday taking the 3 points from The City Ground with a very comfortable 2-1 win which should have been a lot more. This was the final game in this league for a couple of years as Forest finished bottom and went down to the 1st Division. It wasn't too long as they came back up on the first attempt and then the next league game in the 1994/95 season saw Forest produce one of the best displays I've ever seen in the premier league beating Wednesday 4-1 at the city ground. I was going to do that game but didn't want to do a 2 page fest to Forest's under-rated Norweigan midfielder in Lars Bohinen.

For Wednesday, they ended up finishing 7th and getting to two cup finals. However the following FA Cup season, they played Nottingham Forest and beat them 2-0 at the city ground in a replay after a 1-1 draw at Hillsborough 

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