Still can't believe it

After quite easily the worst three seasons in Forest's history, we pull together a run of 6 wins out of 7 to pip Doncaster to automatic promotion, an outcome deemed impossible a month ago.

Saturday was a surreal experience, lots of nerves in the bars Trentside before the game, double rounds in the Boat Club a necessity and a strange atmosphere in the Main Stand.

For the start of the game, though, the noise was cranked up to produce the best atmosphere in The City Ground since, well, Yeovil in the play-offs last season.

An early goal would settle the nerves, and player of the season, local boy & Forest fan Julian Bennet produced a psycho-esque fair tackle on the edge of the Yeovil box before picking himself up and arrowing a left foot bullet into the top corner.

The nerves settled, Forest started to produce the kind of football we all know they can, and were rewarded again a mere 5 minutes later. More tackling deep into the Yeovil half, a quick through ball by the impressive Ormerod put local boy & (supposed) Forest fan Kris Commons one-on-one with the keeper, and he made no mistake through the keepers legs with his standing foot.

Two nil up and the City Ground was buzzing. A fake rumour started doing the rounds that Cheltenham had scored, but it took Yeovil to blow the City Ground bubble with a neatly taken reply. The atmosphere quietened, and to confirm the surreal nature of the afternoon, suddenly there was life in the Forest fans again, as if we'd scored ourselves, Cheltenham had scored, officially this time, a stupidly soft goal as it turned out, but a goal none the less.

The atmosphere cranked back up again it was up to local boy & Forest fan Lewis McGugan to produce yet another free kick that, had it been scored by Ronaldo, SKY TV would have been wetting themselves over for weeks.

Half time, and as results stood, we were up.

Into the second half and we started to look shaky, nothing quite stuck up front, Tyson ran his socks off but every 50-50 went Yeovil's way, every tackle went to a player in a black shirt, every attempted through ball went just too far.

Then the feeling of dread returned. A dull hush went round the fans, confirmed by those with radios that Doncaster had equalised. As if to ram home the point of how close we were to blowing it (again), Yeovil popped up with an easy second and the sense of deja vu returned. Surely we couldn't get so close and lose out again, especially at home to Yeovil ?

And then it all went right again, more excitement, more jumping around, more celebrating. We'd won a corner, but surely that was all. Cheltenham had regained the lead. This time, for good. The Cheltenham game finished before ours, so we knew we were up, all we had to do was run down the clock.

Please keep off the pitch was the mantra for the afternoon, both from the tannoy and the scoreboard. Yeah, right.

So three years in the Third Division and all we had to do all along to end it was produce a decent run of results. Easy.