40 years ago, I spent a year living in the UK at Nottingham. There, I went to school, and my friends at school were very strident supporters of the local football team, Nottingham Forest, who were at that time in the English Second Division (equivalent of the current EFL Championship).
Forest are now in the Premier League and one of the highlights of my trip to Europe was to see Forest play at home at City Ground next to Trent Bridge in Nottingham. Tickets were an incredibly expensive price, but a close friend of my daughter in law is a manager at Forest and was able to obtain a couple of tickets for my son Hugo and I to see Forest playing against Crystal Palace.
The start of the game was emotionally charged for the 30,000 spectators as a past team hero had died that morning, and a moving tribute was held before kick off. Combine that with the super vivid colours of the red stands and the lush green field, this was a sensory overload, and the roar of the crowd singing their anthem and chanting their calls was breathtaking. Over the past 40 years, I had forgotten what a spectacle it is to attend English football. The game had chances for both teams, and while Forest had some really good attacking breaks and mesmerising ball skills from Gibbs-White, Williams and Reyna, they showed some vulnerability in set plays. In the end, a 1-1 draw was probably a fair result. Both teams could have scored more, and the supporters around us clearly thought Forest should have won, but were also relieved that they hadn’t lost. The one point from the draw is valuable to them in their quest to remain in the Premier League, after being deducted 4 points on a technicality of some financial rules.
Hugo and I travelled up and back from London on the day, taking the EMR train that covered almost 100 miles in the first hour of the trip. We visited the house at Burton Joyce where I lived back then in 1974, passing by my school at Carlton-le-Willows, before visiting Nottingham Castle and the ancient “Trip to Jerusalem” pub before the match.
This extended highlights reel of the match begins with the tribute for the late Larry Lloyd, and then the unofficial anthem (at about 1:00). That anthem (Oh City Ground, fog blowing in off the Trent – sung to the tune of Mull of Kintyre, is followed by the chant “Go You Reds”).