Friday 7 March 2014

How one man, made 11 men, make a million people feel great.

I remember the first time I went to see Nottingham Forest. It was 1980, the year of the Iranian Embassy Siege, British Leyland launched its Morris Ital and we were the kings of Europe for the second time. As we got there, a small fat bloke, who I was later told was called Robbo, was signing programmes and pushing them through the wire to fans. You can tell football had quite literally passed me by, my dad never took me, to be honest my dad was absent for most of my life, my step dad didn't like football, so I went with Graeme Hurst from over the road and stood right behind the steel fences in what would become the Brian Clough stand.

I remember that everyone was singing, everyone was happy, everyone was really happy. I wish I had taken more time to soak it in, to try and remember it in detail, but truth is I didn't. I remember flashes like seeing Brian Clough stick up his thumb, the litter and toilets that stank so bad I had to pull my T-shirt over my nose, the pushing and the noise. But most of all I remember the size of it and thinking that I never knew so many people lived in Nottingham.

1980 was not a great year, the start of mass unemployment; strikes, fighting, Thatcher and he killed John Lennon. But it was the start of my relationship with Nottingham Forest and Brian Clough.

This September I will be coming back to Nottingham to tell the story of how one man, made 11 men, make a million people feel great. 

John Roberson 

Where were you? 
Where were you in the 1970's and 1980's?
What did that time mean to you?
Were you married, did you go together, did you take the kids?
Did your Dad take you on?
Did you go to Europe? Tell what it was like travelling away in those days?
What was the City like, the songs, the banter?
Could you stay up and watch Cloughie on telly?
Tell us what you remember and we'll take those stories add some music and bring back those glorious days.

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