Is this the thickest man in the world ?

Again, from the Nottingham Evening Post.

* Is the irony not lost on Judge Dudley Bennett that he sits there with a wig on all day ?

Is this the thickest woman in the world ?

From the Nottingham Evening Post

Starting to worry now

Since the start of the season, my attitude has remained pretty constant, there’s a couple of teams that will challenge (Birmingham & Reading) and after that there’s 14 or 15 teams who could do well, of which one was Forest. We could finish top six, we could (more likely) finish mid-table, BUT, there were too many c**p teams for us to be sucked into a relegation struggle.

Well, 8 games in and not only are we in a relegation struggle, we’re bottom of the league.

Ooops.

Too many stupid goals are being conceded away from home, one off the back of Smith’s head at Swansea coupled with a dodgy penalty, one off the back of Morgan’s head at Wolves, one soft header from 236 yards at Preston and yet again on Saturday when Rory Fallon has the cheek to celebrate scoring the goal of the season despite the ball being kicked against him from a defensive clearance. They say luck evens itself out over the course of the season, but that needs to start happening now rather than later.

However, it isn’t bad luck to let the ball bounce twice in your own area from a long throw-in and while one goal at Wolves was fortunate, the other four certainly weren’t.

So what’s the answer ?

Getting players back from injury is a must, although quite why so many players suddenly become cripples on Trentside is beyond me.

Change the manager ? Maybe, but then what ? Nigel clough ? Yes. Brian Laws, who has an excellent chance to show what he can do tomorrow, but hopefully won’t ? Wouldn’t mind.

But the rumour is “Big” Sam Alladyce ? No, no, no, no, no and indeed, NO !!! I’d rather have Platt, Kinnear or Megson back, to be honest.

Edinburgh Pubs

Forest

Armed with a season ticket again for the first time in three seasons, this year is going to be, hopefully, fingers crossed, one of the dullest seasons in living memory, mid-table obscurity secured by mid-March, no relegation worries to contend with and no disappointment at failure to go up.

That's the plan anyway .....

Notts County 2:3,000 Forest

I used to go down Meadow Lane quite a lot back in the day, free season tickets from Home Brewery led to a frenzy of live football, every Saturday and sometimes twice in mid-week, superb.

But, that was back then. It's been a few years now since I was in Meadow Lane, not since Charlie Palmer (or SIR Charlie Palmer, as the Notts fan calls him) scored a late winner back in 1893, or thereabouts.

A simple walk in the park, spoiled somewhat by Notts pulling a couple of late consolation goals back towards the end.

The Notts County Kop has a new sign on it this season, "It's Black & White", a reference to the home fan taking over the big end.

Black & White, but mainly yellow & grey of disused seats.



Forest 0:0 Reading

My first game with my new season ticket and where do I watch it ? The Anchor Pub in sunny Ingoldmells. Paul Smith wins Forest a point with a fantastic save late on, but that doesn't stop internet warriors hiding behind their keyboards slagging him off. Only the best goalkeepr outside the premiership, but because he doesn't shout his mouth off as often as maybe he should, apparently he's c**p. No nothing idiots.

And if you do go to Ingoldmells, the Anchor is a really nice pub, but only during the day. At night it turns into the bar off of 'From Dusk til Dawn', while the rest of the, ahem, family pubs are simply there to allow Mr & Mrs Chav to leave their screaming brood while they pour twenty pints of cheap lager down their scrawny tattoed necks.



Forest 3:2 Watford

A good end-to-end game, a cracking Psycho-esque tackle from Julian Bennett resulting in the Watford winger crying out of the game and a well earned three points. Hints at the poor refereeing, even in this higher division, but if we can play like this every week, we'll be sorted. If .....



Wolves, er, don't know, lost count : nowhere near enough Forest

My first away league game for a few seasons, cans on the train at 9am, cheap beer in Wolverhampton from 11am onwards, the sign of a good day.

Or maybe not.

The only saving grace on this match is that I'd abused the good nature of the pubs in Wolverhampton so much that I can't remember a great deal about it. Someone told me the score was 5:1 to them and that blah blah blah blah. I'd stopped listening at that point.





Forest 1:1 Burnley
Forest 0:1 The referee

If you're sat at one end of the ground and an incident occurs at the other, sometimes you just have to accept that the referee's got a better view and take it as read that he's correct. I was sat next to David Blunket, Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles for this game, and all four of us saw a Burnley attacker kick the ball against Wes Morgan's chest from two yards for a corner, all from our vantage point 120 yards away. Only the referee saw it differently and that was the difference between the two sides. Since when did it get so hard to referee a game of football, FFS. Mind you, at least the ball went in, sometimes it doesn't even have to do that for the officials to cock things up.

To be fair, Forest didn't create anything so deserved nothing. Burnley created the same and got a gift. Such is life.



Forest 0:0 Charlton

Watching someone who has clearly got no footballing ability whatsoever ruining it for 22 players who have is no way to spend a Saturday afternoon. The referee got every single decision wrong in this one, but to his credit, at least he was equally s**t for both sides, sending off Matt Thornhill for sliding into the advertising hoardings a good two feet away from the opposition winger and then giving Forest a free-kick on the edge of the box after on ofthe best defensive tackles you're ever likely to see. And a yellow card, the muppet.

This game was never ever going to finish anything other than 0:0 from about 5 minutes in. Give me the 3rd division any day.

July

Black Kids

July started with the fantastic Black Kids at the Rescue Rooms. 80's revival a-go-go.




Duran Duran

Concerts are like busses, firstly, a nice new shiney bus pulls up. Swiftly followed by a clapped out, wheezing, knackered old throwback to a bygone age.

In my defence, I won these tickets, so it cost me bugger-all.

I wuz robbed.




More 80's throwbacks

Going to the Nottingham Arena is like busses, oh forget it.

Every year the SKY masters, a football tournament for those over 35 who still don't play for Forest, hits Nottingham. We didn't win, so obviously the tournament doesn't really mean anything serious. No more to be said.

Race track

Pilots were obviously very bored over the summer, deciding to turn the skies over Old Basford into a race track of an evening.



For no particular reason .....

..... a picture of Selectadisc

Up for air

It's been a while, but I've been kinda busy recently.

Actually, that's a bit of a lie, I've been just as busy as I ever was, but I have started a new job, one that is more, ahem, labour intensive than my last, so this has dropped a little of the last few months.

But now I'm back.

So, what have I missed ......

JUNE

Don't drink in D***y

I've only ever had two pints in the city of D***y, and both of those were pish, but some funny wag decided to give me a copy of the D***y Drinker as a leaving present from the NHS. You'd think that on the front cover there'd be a picture of the best pub in D***y, yes ? Well, all boarded up and run down, yes there is a picture of the best pub in D***y. Drink in Nottingham, you know it makes sense.

Try before you buy ? Er, no thanks

I wish I was intelligent enough for this to be photoshopped, but trust me, it isn't. ASDA in West Bridgford inviting people to "Try before you buy" on toilet paper in the middle of the shop. That's south of the river for you, I suppose.

Provided You Don't Kiss Me

Duncan Hamilton, the former Nottingham Forest journalist & author of the 'Provided You Don't Kiss Me' Brian Clough book held a Q&A session at the Broadway. A clearly intelligent, but very nervous, man put into a position of unquestionable responsibility, reporting on Forest's, but ultimately Clough's, story. Preceding the session was a fourty minute film of archive footage from the Derby & Forest eras, most of which I'd not seen before. Hopefully it will see the light of day at some point.

One piece had Gary Newbon interviewing Clough & John McGovern after a match before the Hamburg final.

Clough was asked whether it was more interesting having Kevin Keegan in the opposition. Clough being Clough said no, but it was better that Hamburg were a better side than some they’d faced, but they weren’t too worried about Hamburg, or the fact that Trevor Francis was out injured etc etc. John McGovern said that Keegan was a good player, as was their right back, Manny Kaltz. Clough feigned he didn’t know who Kaltz was, so Gary Newbon explained, to which Clough told Newbon “of course (he) knew who he was, don’t come that with me” and then said;

“We’ve got a little fat lad who’ll run rings round him”

Cue the footage of Robertson being shown onto his right foot by Kaltz, one two with Birtles before scoring with his right foot with Kaltz yards behind.

Genius.

Nice guys finish last

It's cold, cloudy, a hint of a thunder-storm in the air, it must be the cricket season. Notts needed to beat Yorkshire to progress to the 20/20 knockout stages. They didn't. BUT, Yorkshire played an illegible player, so we're back in. Then Glamorgan step in, throw their dummy out of the pram and demand to be let back in, despite the initial problem being ABSOLUTELY F**K ALL NOTHING TO DO WITH THEM. Notts sit back playing the gentlemen, and the Welsh get their rightful (b******s) place in the knock-outs. Fortunately a, we'd have been hammered anyway, and b, Glamorgan were. Good riddance.