Forest nil 0:1 Blackburn

Unfortunately I can still see the line from my Blackpool review now:

... we’d still be one nill down if we were still playing now.

And so it continued, all bluster with no end product. Chance after chance went uncreated, half chances were turned into goal kicks and even the gift of quite possibly the softest penalty ever wasn't translated into a goal.

Sure, someone's going to kop for a right hammering sooner or later, but it'll be more down to their bad luck than our team selection or tactics.

Bad luck seems to be a running theme in Jimmy Krankie's increasingly deluded post-match interviews. After last night he said; "I am not downbeat, because I genuine feel this side is playing good football, creating many chances, showing excellent bits of possession but not getting the chances they deserve and for whatever reason not getting the breaks. And that is not an excuse but an absolute fact."

Well I've always believed you make your own luck, and I think it was Gary Player that used to say; "The more I practice, the luckier I get".

So sort it out Billy, before it's too late.

Good news, I'll be off to the pub then

From the BBC:

A dose of alcohol may be a good treatment for people with head injuries, emergency doctors suggest.

Their basis for this is the discovery that people appear less likely to die following brain trauma if they have alcohol in their bloodstream.

It could be that alcohol dampens the body's inflammatory response to injury, the US team told Archives of Surgery.

But they stressed that alcohol can cause medical complications and is contributory to many accidents.

Experts cautioned people should not interpret the findings as an excuse to drink more alcohol.

What was that last line again ? I didn't catch it, too busy putting my shoes on .....

They'd let you shoot them, so long as they could sell you the gun themselves

There’s an interesting article in this months ‘What’s Brewing’, the paper for members of the CAMpaign for Real Ale. Twenty years have passed since the mergers & monopolies commission looked into breweries and their tied estates. In short, any brewery that owned over 2000 pubs had to make a ‘foreign’ beer available in any of the pubs over the 2000. Breweries aren’t stupid and instantly went into mutual back scratching mode. Almost overnight every pub in the south of England had Newcastle Brown while drinkers in pubs owned by Scottish & Newcastle estates could enjoy Charles Wells Bombadier as a trade off. Obviously since then most major breweries sold all the pubs to unscrupulous Pub Co’s who in turn cared little for the beer, their publicans, social problems arising from drunk culture and now, ultimately, whether pubs should be pubs at all.

What they all cared for was profit over the spirit of the legislation.

And now it’s happening again.

Different arena, different policies, same Capitalistic response.

The Workplace Parking Levy is due to hit the car parks of Nottingham in the next couple of years in order, so we’re told, to fund the increase in public transport.

Now, there’s no arguments from me in the desire to increase public transport, in the same way as the disappointing acceptance that Johnny Carowner doesn’t want to use public transport if they can get away with sitting in THEIR protective box every morning.

Thousands of businesses were asked about the upcoming levy. Dozens of them replied, the rest didn’t, probably in the assumption that it’d never happen.

Now it’s had Government approval and suddenly there’s uproar in the Nottingham Chamber of Commerce. A non-elected body is using tax-payers money to hire solicitors to block an incentive put forward by the elected City Council to reduce the amount of traffic on our roads every day. 30 of them attended their own meeting over the weekend. 30 out of thousands of effected businesses. It’s like mafia families getting together to defeat the new law enforcer in town.

Unfortunately, this completely ignores the spirit of the legislation, that in order to reduce the number of cars on our roads, we have to both increase the availability of public transport, but also make it harder on those who selfishly want to carry on themselves.

But like dog muck on pavements and extra injury time at Old Trafford, Capitalism it seems is always trying to find a way.

Forest 0:1 Blackpool

Don’t be under any illusions about this game from either the statistics or the managers’ comments after the game. We were s**t and we’d still be one nill down if we were still playing now.

Our formation varied wildly throughout the game, from 4-5-1 to 4-3-1 all the way down to 4-0-1. Our players couldn’t pass the ball two yards to a red shirt and again we’d got players out of position. In short, it’s a Bobby Ewing moment, we’ve woken up, it’s last season again and Calderwoodout is still in charge.

Rob Earnshaw is so low in confidence at the moment that if you measured him with a tape measure you’d get a minus reading. David McGoldrick went missing from minute one. Guy Moussi has lost any ability to play football and has found the ability to tackle his own players, in short not a useful trait. We’d clearly been training on getting down the flanks and putting crosses over. But what’s the point when you’ve got a -4’5” striker in the middle spending all afternoon cushioning the ball back to the keeper.

Their goal was so predictable, Des Coleman described it on Midlands today three weeks ago. Charlie Adam picks the ball up in his own half, dribbles past four, FOUR, Forest defenders before stroking it in past a bemused Lee Camp. I wouldn’t mind if any of the four had put in a sodding tackle, but it looked like three of them gave Mr Adam directions while Luke Chambers offered to carry his shopping. Charlie Adam is so not Maradonna.

So, where do we go from here ?

You could say it was a one off, one of those things, evens itself out over the season. Well, we’re already onto our THIRD home defeat of the season and we haven’t hit the end of September yet. And the only team we’ve beaten so far are a relegation bound Derby side. And they nearly pulled back a three goal deficit. It’s all well and good having two players for every position, but if you play well and you’ve got a settled side then don’t change it. If you’ve got the shirt, you’ve got to keep hold of it, if you haven’t, you’ve got to earn it back. If there’s one thing I know from watching Forest over the last few seasons, it’s this:

Tinkering with formations, players out of positions, too much long ball simply DOESN’T F***ING WORK.

Sort it out Davies, you won’t have long before the boo boys are on your back.

And yet there are STILL people who oppose this

From the BBC:

Bans on smoking in public places have had a bigger impact on preventing heart attacks than ever expected, data shows.

Smoking bans cut the number of heart attacks in Europe and North America by up to a third, two studies report.

Sheffield ‘sour grapes’ Wednesday 1:1 Forest

You know you’re on to a good day when you’re in the pub for 10:30 for a 3pm kick off. A JD Wetherspoons to start the day wasn’t the plan we had in mind to start with, but after perusing the new 2010 CAMRA Good Beer Guide we realised that pub no.1 wasn’t open until Saturday evening. D’oh. Ah well, never mind.

One each in the Red Deer, Bath Hotel & Wellington before a couple in the Crown Brewery tap, the Hillsborough Hotel, to finish off the pre-match quenching. Nice.







Like the Derby game two weeks ago, no sooner had the game started than we scored, Dexter Blackstock with the glanciest of headers unmarked six yards out. That’s what you go to away games for, that feeling of elation when a ball hits a net 120 yards away and you’re surrounded by 5,000 fellow trickies. Heaven. 1-0 should have been 2-0 within 20 minutes, but this time Dexter’s touch was too heavy and the ball skewed wide. Sheff Wed were always in the game, but their finishing was snatchy and baloony. All good words these, feel free to use any of them.

Their equaliser came from a period of sustained pressure, but for the second season running owed more to luck than judgement. Wes Morgan was a rock all afternoon, throwing himself in front of every shot, but on this occasion his touch was the telling one as Lee Camp lunged one way only for the ball to be diverted the other.

The second half was fairly even, Paul Anderson bringing a good save out of Lee Grant, but a draw was overall a fair result. It looked better on the BBC1 highlights.

Brian Laws didn’t see it that way, bemoaning Forest’s time wasting tactics. Admittedly, I remembering mentioning during the game that the Sheff Wed players did themselves credit by not rolling around on the floor as you tend to see on Match of the Day every Saturday night, but I don’t see why Forest players should be in any rush to get the ball back in play just because the opposition prefer it that way. Fair play to you.









After the game we waited for a tram, and waited, and waited ……





The Kelham Island Brewery's tap, the Fat Cat serves some nice beer, but beware the Cherry Perry, dangerously drinkable at 7%. The Kelham Island Tavern round the corner is CAMRA’s pub of the year, but I’m not sure why. Don’t get me wrong, it’s very nice, but I can name you three pubs within walking distance of my house that are better. To be fair I can name you three other pubs within walking distance of my house that I wouldn’t drink in without having my knacker in a vice.

A train home with some, ahem, Forest fans at the lower end of the evolutionary scale before a quick last one in the Vat & Fiddle.



Castle Rock beers are, on the whole, very nice. Pyramidal Orchid certainly isn’t.

Sheffield

Off to Sheffield tomorrow, do you reckon 10:30am is too late to turn up for a 3pm kick off ?

Anyway, Sheffield have provided some cracking tunes over the years, so have a listen and have a good weekend.

Longpigs - She Said


Human League - Being Boiled


Pulp - Sunrise

The problem with living in glass houses

From the BBC:

Peter Mandleson wants the bosses of failed motor manufacturers Rover to apologise to the thousands of workers thrown onto the scrapheap while they took millions in pay, benefits & pensions.

Yeah, an apology should do it. Thousands of families struggling on the breadline, not able to take their kids away on holiday, looking forward to a stark Christmas while they struggle to make ends meet. Sorry.

So, if you see Peter Mandleson, the same Peter Mandleson who has feathered his own nest during his time, don't worry if you feel the urge to smack the smug twat several times. An apology should cover it.

Tory in 'Talks Sense' shock

From the Nottingham Evening Post:

'Hallowed turf' of City Ground best for World Cup games

THE leader of Notts County Council says the City Ground is "hallowed" turf which should be used as the site for World Cup matches.

In an interview with the Evening Post, Coun Kay Cutts has confirmed she believes Nottingham Forest's stadium is best placed to stage games should Nottingham become a host city for the 2018 World Cup.

Nice