Having had their perfect start to the season stopped at Highbury, Forest looked to get back to winning ways quickly at the club we had to thank for getting us promoted last season, Wolves. Wolves, you may remember, had won 1-0 at Bolton to kill their dreams of promotion and hand it, instead, to Forest.
Wolverhampton Wanderers 2 Nottingham Forest 3
Molineaux
This was my second visit to the famous old ground in the black country. Molineux was an iconic English football ground with a name that apparently originates from Benjamin Molineux, a local merchant who bought land and ended up owning "The Molineux Hotel" on which the stadium would eventually be built. It was the first stadium built for the football league but it wasn't their original ground. Recently the ground has been redeveloped to make it look like a more generic football stadium.
Wolves were one of the original 12 football league teams that kicked off on 8th September 1888 ( a 1-1 draw away to local rivals Aston Villa) and so Forest and Wolves have the full 120 seasons to compare their records, the Reds entering the league 5 years later.
The First Football League Season 1888-89
Even today, Wolves still have the marginally the better record overall, despite a few seasons in the lower reaches of the league.
Average league position 1888-2017
Forest have finished above Wolves 51 times, to their 69 today. But in the 79 seasons before this match in 1977 Forest had only finished above Wolves 26 times, and only 3 of those were since 1930. Wolves were most dominant over Forest in 1949-50, finishing 44 places higher than us. Up to the game 40 years ago, Forest's best time against Wolves was in 1923-24 when they finished 24 places above them. But, of course, times were changing - for the better for Forest, and for the worse for Wolves. In 1987-88 Forest would end up 66 places above Wolves, as we finished 3rd in the top flight whilst Wolves were actually in the 4th tier, albeit winning the league at the second attempt.
Football League Record in the Top Flight 1888-1976 - Sorted by Pts
All-time Forest v Wolves League Record
Wolves' glory years spanned the second world war, with the most remarkable period in the 1950s. when they won the league three times. They had been runners up 5 times and won the F. A. Cup 4 times and the League Cup once.
Wolves, English League Champions three times in the 1950s - Can you spot Billy Wright?
Unfortunately, in those days English league clubs were as Euroskeptic as the Brexiteers are today and deemed themselves too good to have prove their superiority over other European clubs by actually having to play them in any competition not run from England. Wolves were one of pioneering clubs of the day that however in that they did regularly play the best teams in Europe in friendlies. They were also England's first representatives in the European Cup in 1958-59.
Wolves v Read Madrid in 1957
Wolves were the best team in England for 20 seasons spanning the war years: 1936-1960
According to the excellent 11.v11 web site (which I trust completely) Wolves have played Forest 128 times. Winning 59, losing 43 and drawing the rest (26). All but six were in the league. Wolves beat Forest 6-1 twice, in 1895-86 and 1967-68 but Forest still have the biggest win, 7-1 in 1893-94. No away team has ever scored more than 4 goals in a Forest v Wolves match so far.
Wolves had won promotion, along with Chelsea and Forest, to the top flight as second division champions a few months earlier. In fact is was their heroic win at Bolton on their last match of the season that effectively gifted promotion to the tricky trees.
The Teams
The Wolves team were without a couple of the stars that had impressed the season before Bobby Gould had moved on to Bristol Rovers and Kenny Hibbitt was injured. But John Richards (capped and scored for England) and Willie Carr (capped for Scotland) were in the team. They also had an up and coming youngster, called Alan Sunderland, who was soon to move to Arsenal where he had an impressive career. Their manager was Sammy Chung.
Willie Carr
Alan Sunderland
John Richards
For Forest, Colin Barrett started in place of Frank Clark who thus missed his first match in two years.
Wolverhampton Wanderers
1 Gary Parkes, 2 Geoff Palmer, 3 Maurice Daly, 4 Steve Daley, 5 Derek Parkin, 6 John McAlle, 7 Martin Patching, 8 Willie Carr, 9 John Richards, 10 Kenneth Todd, 11 Alan Sunderland.
Goals: Steve Daley 1 (pen.), Norman Bell 1.
Substitutions: Norman Bell (12) came on for Kenneth Todd(10).
Nottingham Forest
1 John Middleton, 2 Viv Anderson, 3 Colin Barrett, 4 John McGovern, 5 Larry Lloyd, 6 Kenny Burns, 7 Martin O'Neill, 8 Ian Bowyer, 9 Peter Withe, 10 Tony Woodcock, 11 John Robertson.
Goals : Ian Bowyer 1, Peter Withe 1, Tony Woodcock 1.
Attendance: 24,622
John Middleton
A special tribute to John Middleton is due here. The Lincoln lad made his 90th league appearance for Forest that day - and it would be his last. His debut, almost three years earlier, was at Hawthorns on Saturday, 19th October 1974, where Forest got a 1-0 win at West Bromwich Albion. I was there that day too - only my 2nd ever Forest away game. Middleton would leave for Derby County a few weeks later (as part of the deal that brought Archie Gemmill back to the Clough/Taylor partnership). He made another 73 appearances for the Rams before retiring injured. He was a good 'un, but I think even John would feel humble at who he was going to be passing his shirt to. Clough and Taylor had someone special in mind to fill his goalkeeper's jersey.
The Match
Three headed goals seemed to have put Forest in an unassailable position. Peter Withe headed Forest into a 1-0 half time lead. John Robertson teed up Ian Bowyer for a second and Woodcock made it 3-0 in front of us in the South Bank. Forest were coasting to another win before Normal Bell pulled one back for Wolves. Then a Steve Daley penalty made it 3-2 and Forest had to desperately hang on for the two points.
This was the 4th time Forest had won at Molineux by 3-2.
Other Matches
League Table
Next up for Forest, another West Midlands team, but back in Nottingham - Aston Villa.
40 years ago, the Brian Clough Stand was nearing completion and, despite not yet having a roof, people started sitting in the vast array of seats of its upper tier. It wasn't called "The Brian Clough Stand" then, of course. Someone, bizarrely, thought "The Executive Stand" was appropriate. It would seem a perverse name, even in today's billionaire infused world of football, never mind in those dark days at the end of the 1970s, as Britain was only just throwing off its last flirtation with socialism. Filling the seats was something we had never really questioned, as Clough and Taylor had brought so much success to Nottingham in the last two years. The City Ground had attracted several 40,000+ attendances during this era, so getting 32,000 or so once the City Ground capacity was reduced, would surely be no problem. However, Forest's league form seemed to suddenly become very fragile as the construction of the stand neared its completion. Most alarmingl
The 1977-78 season was sliding inexorably to the so-called "pointy-end" (meaning, I think, when things are decided). Forest, top of the first division by four points, after drawing 0-0 at Derby now turned their attention to a League Cup Quarter Final - the first time they'd ever got this far in the tournament. In their way stood third division Bury, who were looking for some cup glory themselves. They had already beaten 4th Division Crewe Alexandra, 3rd Division Oxford United, 2nd Division Millwall, and 1st Division West Bromwich Albion on their way to this quarter final. But, unlike Forest, they'd been here before. In fact if they won, Bury would get to the semi-finals of the League Cup for their second time. Could they do it, or would it be Forest's year? You know the answer but before describing my trip to the match let's pay respect to the long history of Bury F.C. and some of their great historical highlights. The North West is Football Mad
40 Years is a long long time. Here, touching back, brings us round again to find when Forest took a big step towards returning to returning to Wembley to defend the League Cup that they had won the season before (when they were victorious over the mighty, mighty Liverpool in a replay at Old Trafford) by eliminating a swarm of ascendant hornets. (That's Watford, to those not acquainted with their nickname.) In this post, I'll give a brief outline of Watford Football Club's bizarre chameleon-like (but, it has to be said, remarkably unsuccessful) history before doing a big catch up with what had happened in the world of football in the weeks between Forest beating Brighton in the quarter finals back at the start of December, and this game. The most famous Watford fan, of course, is Reg Dwight. Y'know... Elton John - so I'll do a bit on him as well, interweaving his career into my life via my dear sister who, as far as I was aware, discovered him, and some of his f
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