Nottingham Forest: From second division to winning UEFA Champions League – A true folklore

This was a miraculous achievement by the English club.

Nottingham Forest achieved an unthinkable feat three decades ago. Here we take a look back at that miraculous journey.

Let me try and put your imagination powers to the test. Think about last season’s EFL Championship, the second tier football league in England and look at the final standings. Go to the 13th position and you will find Hull City. Now if I tell you to imagine that this same Hull squad was languishing 13th in the middle of the season and managed to stage a comeback and gain promotion to the Premier League, I bet you can do that. But let me stretch your imagination even further and tell you that this same Hull City squad will go on to win the Premier League at their first attempt after promotion, back-to-back Champions League titles, a couple of EFL Cups and create a record for an unbeaten run that would rival that of Arsenal’s Invincibles then you will think that’s exaggerating a bit too much. Yes, promotion may be well within grasp but so many more trophies in just 5 or 6 years after that is near impossible and it would take an incredible amount of effort to achieve something as far fetched as that. But if you look back a few decades you will find that such an unprecedented feat had been achieved by a side who was struggling in the second division of English football and then mounted an almighty challenge to become the best in Europe in half a decade. This is the story of Nottingham Forest and their road to European glory.

Nottingham Forest was branded as the least progressive club in the country by one of their committee members when the team was fighting for survival in the second division during the 1974 season. But their fortunes changed completely when a certain Yorkshireman with a wagging finger and a nasal accent landed his coat on the peg on a cold January morning in 1975. Brian Clough waved his magic around Forest and what followed was a majestic rise of a small side that would go on to conquer Europe and make their country proud of a feat that would go down in folklore for many generations to follow.

One of the main features of the success of Brian Clough’s tenure at Forest was the scouting and acquisition of talented and effective players. This became more pronounced when Peter Taylor joined Clough’s side as his assistant. Viv Anderson, Martin O’Neill, Ian Bowyer, Tony Woodcock and John Robertson were the five players who were present throughout Forest’s era defying run from almost being relegated to the third division to becoming European Champions.

Kenny Burns, who had a reputation of being a pub-brawler, was transformed from a marauding centre-forward to what the fans lovingly called him as the Scottish Bobby Moore by Clough and Taylor. Frank Clark came on a free transfer from Newcastle and John Robertson was almost sold off to a fourth division club before Clough entered and settled things down. England’s famous goalkeeper, Peter Shilton, was signed on as the most expensive custodian of that time followed by the biggest signing of that era when Trevor Francis cost 1 million pounds. But the main strength of the team came through a bunch of free transfers, bargain buys, rogues and misfits who turned out to be exceptionally gifted on the football pitch.

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Nottingham Forest gained promotion to the top-flight with only 52 points in their bag, the 5th lowest of any promoted team in history. Peter Taylor then got on board and Forest was like a new side. They defied all odds and won the 1977-78 Football League, 7 points ahead of runners-up Liverpool thereby becoming one of the select few and most recent team to date to win the league in the season immediately after their promotion. Forest had qualified for the 1978-79 European Cup and was drawn to play Liverpool who was the reigning champions under Bob Paisley. But Forest outplayed their domestic rivals and goals from Birtles and Barrett secured a 2-0 victory over the Reds.

The semi-final against FC Koln was a tough affair for Clough and his team. In the first-leg at home Forest trailed 2-0 to Koln before scoring 3 to make an almighty comeback but Koln equalized in the dying moments to make it 3-3 and take the away-goal advantage back to Germany. Forest managed to win the second-leg 1-0 with a goal from Ian Bowyer but Koln was left dumbfounded by Forest’s captain John McGovern who later was acclaimed by Gunter Netzer who said, “Who is McGovern? I had never heard of him but he ran the game.” Forest then faced Malmo in the final of the European Cup at the Olympiastadion in Munich and their 1 million Pound man, Trevor Francis, scored a back-post header from a cross from John Robertson making Nottingham Forest the miracle makers of the season.

During this time Forest went on a 42 match unbeaten run that has only been bettered once since, by the Invincibles of Arsenal. They also won the League cup that year but missed out on the league as they finished behind Liverpool, who incidentally were the team to end their long unbeaten run. Forest then faced Barcelona in the European Super Cup of 1979 and they beat the Catalans 2-1 on aggregate with Charlie George scoring in the home leg and Burns with the all-important equalizer at the Camp Nou. McGovern recounted the scenes after the match had ended, “Two rows of Barcelona fans, eight deep, all the way from the exit to our coach. We could be in trouble here. It was then they started clapping. As we walked to our coach they clapped all the way. Not a Forest fan in sight, all Barcelona fans. Clapping us out of their stadium.”

Their title defence was just as exciting. In the quarter-final, Forest would face Dinamo Berlin and after a home loss with a scoreline of 1-0, they overturned the deficit to win 3-1 away in Germany. The semi-final against Ajax was a tense affair as the players were given horrible accommodations ahead of their clash at Amsterdam. Peter Shilton had to train in the backyard of the hotel as it contained the only patch of grass in the entire neighbourhood. But Nottingham Forest was in a class of its own as the players put up an effortless performance over both legs to win 2-1 on aggregate.

Forest faced Hamburg in the final at the Santiago Bernabeu and Robertson, who had provided the assist in the previous final against Malmo, left his fingerprint in this final as well when he scored the only goal to make Nottingham Forest the Kings of Europe for a second year running. Clough later hailed him as the ‘Picasso of our side’ and McGovern described him as ‘Ryan Giggs with two good feet, not one’.

Looking back, the story seems almost impossible. It is one of those tales that will probably never happen again but it gives people hope because it was made possible once. Nottingham Forest came out of nowhere and under the guidance of Clough and Taylor took the latter half of the 1970s by storm. All of a sudden, Nottingham did not only have Robin Hood but Brian Clough and Nottingham Forest as well. Words from Garry Birtles, the youngest member of the magnificent Forest side, are what sums up this astonishing tale of becoming champions from underdogs – “Every time I watch Liverpool now I look for the flags on the Kop because there’s a two-year gap in the dates. They go from ’77 and ’78 to ’81. And I always think that’s us, that gap. We did that.”