|
|
 Founded 1865 |
The History of Forest |
       |
In 1891 the first professional players were signed and Forest won the Alliance League with a record of won 12, drawn 3, lost 5, scoring 59 and conceding 22. The first use of goal nets was at Forest's ground in a representative match between North Vs South. Forest were admitted into Football League Division One in 1892 and finished 10th that first season. The first major honour that came Forest's way was the FA Cup in 1898 after beating Derby County 3-1 at the Crystal Palace. In 1899 now settled at the City Ground Frank and Fred Forman became the first brothers to represent England at the same time, a feat only since repeated by the Charlton brothers. 
It was in 1913 when Grenville Morris the all time Forest leading goalscorer played his last game for the club after 458 appearances scoring 217 goals. For much of the second half of the 20th century the club spent life in the Second Division winning it in 1922 but the Reds had to seek re-election in 1914 after finishing bottom of the league without Grenville's goals. In 1949 the club were relegated to the Third Division, but bounced back two years later as champions of the Second. A brief period of glory followed at the end of the 1950's when they beat Luton Town at Wembley to win the FA Cup for a second time. It was in 1961 when floodlights were first installed at the City Ground. By this time Forest had become the biggest team in Nottingham, overtaking Notts County. But after reaching the high of runners-up spot and cup semi-finalists in 1967, Forest were relegated from the First Division in 1972. In 1973 the club badge as we know it today was adopted. It was in 1975 when the fortunes really changed for Forest when Brian Clough became manager with his assistant Peter Taylor joining him at the club in 1976.
Forest won promotion to the top division at the end of the 1976-1977 season after finishing third in the Second Division, but no one could have predicted how successful Clough's team would be over the next three seasons. Forest became one of the few teams(and the most recent to date)to win the English First Division Championship a year after winning promotion from the English Second Division.(1977-1978 season) Forest went 42 matches unbeaten from November 1977 to December 1978. 
In 1978-1979, Forest went on to win the European Cup by beating Malmo 1-0 in Munich's Olympic Stadium and retained the trophy in 1979-1980, beating Hamburg 1-0 in Madrid thanks to an outstanding performance by goalkeeper Peter Shilton. They also won the European Super Cup and two League Cups. |
Clough became the most successful manager in the history of Nottingham Forest. He had won the league title with our bitter rivals Derby County in 1972, and came to Forest on 6 January 1975, after a 0-2 defeat by Notts County, on Boxing Day, prompted the committee to sack the previous manager Allan Brown. Clough's first game in charge was the third round FA Cup replay against Tottenham, a 1-0 victory thanks to a goal by Scottish centre-forward