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Forest-Leeds: Withe in touching distance

40 years ago Forest were rapidly closing in on their first, and only, first division championship title. After getting an impressive 0-0 draw at Manchester City the previous Tuesday - a match they might have been expected to lose - they were back at home for the first of their last three games at the City Ground. Of the three, playing Leeds United was probably the most difficult but, considering Forest's excellent home record, it was a match most fans expected them to win.
Here, I'll review the current state of the predictions at that point and give Cloughie the credit he deserves for his generosity in playing his team in testimonials at such a hectic time. Following on from Ken Smales' leader in the match day programme, I'll take a nostalgic look at the City Ground as it was before a set of major changes to the ground were about to undertaken in the close season. In fact, as I've looked at a few clubs' previous grounds this season, it's about time I did the same thing for Forest. Another big crowd in Nottingham pushed our aggregate of home attendances for the season closer to an astonishing million.

Finally, I'll be a bit "previous" and say a slightly premature goodbye to Peter Withe. Withe was still to play another seven more games for Forest but his 65th minute goal in this match would be his last in a competitive match for the club.

Getting Closer

The countdown to Forest's title was well under way. Seven more games to go for us, just four for several teams. Forest were five points ahead with three games in hand. In the bag, surely. But after so many heartbreaks most Forest fans, like Cloughie's teams, had their feet firmly on the ground and took nothing for granted.

Everton were in second place but Liverpool were the most serious challengers now, having recently won at Goodison Park. Like us, Liverpool had seven games left. If they won them all, and that was certainly doable for them as they'd just reached the European Cup final again, they could reach 60 points. 

So, there you had it: Forest needed just six more points from seven games and the title was ours!


The Generous Squire: Brian Clough

Looking back forty years provides lots of interesting insights into how things have changed in the game. Few are more profound that this one. Imagine it. You're in charge of a team that are on the verge of their first ever first division title win. Because you've won the League Cup and made it to the 6th Round of the F.A. Cup, and as there have also been a lot of postponements due to bad weather, there's been a severe back log of fixtures. You've only got a small squad of players and a few of them have just come back from injury. Your team was closing in on 50 first class matches. You'd played eight in March and you had another eight lined up for April.

Right now, at this time, somebody arranges a couple of testimonial matches for local players and asks you to provide a team to help out.

I presume that this is what happened. Someone must have asked Brian words to the effect "Henry Newton is having his testimonial at Derby on April 3rd. Could you field a team, please, Brian?"

Another question must have come in like this "Les Bradd, remember him? Notts County are arranging his testimonial for 12th April. Would it be asking too much for you to field a team?"

Can you imagine Jose Mourinho's reaction? Not that any player playing at the levels of today's equivalent of Henry Newton or Les Bradd would ever need a testimonial any more.

Anyway, Cloughie said "Yes, young man!" and so, in the middle of this most hectic run of matches towards the end of the most dramatic season Forest had ever had, we played two friendlies, one at Derby and one at Notts County.


Henry Newton was a Forest hero of Johnny Carey's great side of the mid 1960s. He made 282 appearances for the Reds before moving to Everton in 1970. A few years and 75 appearances later he joined the old enemy, Derby County, where he made another 117 appearances before ending his career at Walsall. Who would be the equivalent of Henry Newton today? As a decent Premier League midfield player - he'd be on over 50,000 a week, I think. It would be a bit cheeky to ask for a testimonial after a career spanning fifteen years at those wages, wouldn't it?

Les Bradd is still the all-time highest scorer of Notts County with 125 goals in 398 appearances for them from 1967 to 1978. I saw him score several times, the first was at Field Mill when Notts drew with the Stags 1-1 in February 1972. He was often a thorn in Forest's side so I thought it was particularly generous of Forest to agree to play for him.

9,070 turned up to the Baseball Ground to watch Forest beat Derby 2-1 for Henry Newton's testimonial. Larry Lloyd and Ian Bowyer got the goals. Nine days later, the day after their draw at Maine Road, they played at Meadow Lane in front of 10,129 to watch them beat Notts County 1-0. John O'Hare scored the goal.

The City Ground on the verge of change

In the programme notes for the Leeds game, Ken Smales wrote excitedly about some ground improvements that were going to made to the City Ground in the close season. As he put it "as soon as the curtain falls at the end of this truly memorable season the contractors will descend on the City Ground like a veritable swarm of locusts to commence work on a major rebuilding programme."

Fans with a poor memory, like me, might think he was referring to the redevelopment of the old East Stand but, no, that would be the season after. All he was referring to was a set of comparatively minor changes to the ground to meet safety regulations. New turnstiles, barriers etc. Perhaps the biggest change we could look forward to ("it would be worth the admission money alone to see it" according to Ken) was a new electronic scoreboard.

Forest had played on the banks of the Trent at their current location since 1898, for 120 years now, 80 years ago then. It was their seventh home ground, although the total time spent at the previous six was just 33 years.

Their first ground, starting in 1865 remember, was the Forest Racecourse, close to the where the annual Goose Fair is still held. Forest apparently played there for 14 years but most of these must have been local games as Forest only entered the F.A. Cup for the first time in 1878. It seems that Forest must have played a couple of cup games there though. They beat Sheffield (just Sheffield, not Wednesday or United, but the oldest club still in existence) 2-0 in December 1878 in the F.A. Cup Second Round and then Oxford University in the 4th round the following February.

The cup run had highlighted how inadequate the racecourse was for charging people to come to a football match and the next season, Forest moved to (somewhere) in "The Meadows" - a notorious area of Nottingham when I was a lad.
Photo of the place where Forest used to play on "The Forest Racecourse" ten years after they'd stopped playing there
Forest did well in "the Cup" in their one season at the  Meadows, beating Notts County 4-0 and Blackburn Rovers 6-0.

City Ground, our seventh and hopefully last ever home
After that, Forest switched to playing at the famous Trent Bridge cricket ground for a couple of years. Nottinghamshire were doing very well at the time and as Trent Bridge was the best sports venue in the city it was a real privilege to play there even though we had no Cup success in those two years. The only F.A. Cup match I think was played there was a home defeat to Aston Villa on 4th December 1880. It must have been a bad view though. Playing football on cricket pitches is not a good idea as every Australian and older fans of Northampton Town and Sheffield United would know.

In 1882 Notts County outbid Forest for the use of Trent Bridge, so the club had to find yet another venue to play its games. Notts played at the cricket ground for the next 29 years. It's funny to think that eleven games of the very first season in the football league were played there.

For the next eight years, Forest played in Lenton. From 1882 until 1885 they played at Parkside on a site that has long since been built over. It was apparently close to Derby Road. The ground wasn't well received by the press, being criticised for being too far out of town and for having a poor, sloping pitch. They often got crowds of around 5,000 - 6,000 though.

Parkside woz 'ere

Forest moved again a couple of years later, just a few hundred meters away to a ground that still exists today, albeit used as playing fields for a local school. "The Gregory Ground" was much better received and often had attendances of around 10,000.

Lads still playing at "The Gregory" even today
Forest had moderate success in the Cup whilst they played at "The Gregory."

"Gregory Graaand, Oh mist rollin in from Wollaton Park"
All of this history is beautifully described in much more detail here, in an on-line version of "The Lenton Times".

Forest moved yet again in 1890, back to "The Meadows" but close to the Town Arms by the Trent. As a consequence the ground became known as "The Town Ground". The club bought the site (glamorously described as "Councillor Woodward's Field") and developed the ground for the princely sum of of one thousand pounds.


Forest had more success there than before and this is where they played their first six seasons of league football. The ground is also quite famous as being the venue for the first football match (in 1891) that used crossbars and nets. It had a capacity of 15,000 and hosted two F.A. Cup semi finals.

A Nottingham crawl of ex-Forest grounds would take about three hours

On 3rd September 1898 Forest moved for the seventh (and hopefully last) time... to their current iconic position on the banks of the river by the famous Trent Bridge... The City Ground.

The City Ground in 1898

Forest had just won the F.A. Cup earlier in year, beating none other than Derby County 3-1 in the final and the ground opened just 140 days later. It was apparently called "The City Ground" as Nottingham had just been chartered as a City and to denote the fact that, at the time, it was within the boundary of Nottingham City, and not West Bridgeford - a fact that changed later, making a bit of a mockery of the name.

I must admit I've always thought it a shame they didn't call it "Trentside" (better still would be "Trent Bridge" but someone had claimed that one already). Still, finally, in 1898 Forest had a ground that would have some kind of permanence. It's ironic that Notts County only started playing at Meadow Lane twelve years later as they still played at Trent Bridge cricket ground as Forest were settling in.

There's a nice web page from the Nottingham Evening Post which describes the history of the ground very nicely and I've lifted a few photos from it. I hope they don't mind.








Here's some amazing footage of the second fire in 1968. The visitors that day... Leeds United.




So, since the building of the East Stand in 1957 and the Main Stand in 1965, not much had changed at the City Ground. But now, with Forest closing in on historic title, the fans continued to pour over Trent Bridge into the ground. Almost 39,000 today put the current home aggregate for the season (in all competitions) to over 880,000. It was time to think again about improving the stadium.

Don't get too excited though. The old East Stand would stay where it was for one more year. What we were promised, though, as described above and in Ken Smales notes below, was a new scoreboard so here's a couple of images of the good old one that had served us so well for all those years.

Miah Dennehy with the old scoreboard in the background

Half time scores put up in lettered windows and the time of the golden goals too - luxury!

The first 27 City Ground attendances in 1977-78

Forest v Leeds at the City Ground

Forest's record against Leeds at the City Ground had been pretty good for those games that were not first division and pretty poor for those that were. We'd only beaten them three times out of 13 in the first division but never lost in the second or the cups.


Most of those defeats have to be attributed to Don Revie, I suppose.


The Teams

With Tony Woodcock finally missing a game - his first after 84 consecutive appearances - thanks to Manchester City's brutal treatment the previous Tuesday night, Ian Bowyer came into the line up again, this time as a striker. Full-back, midfield, forward... "Bomber" Bowyer doesn't care.

Hart with Hair
Viv Anderson made way for Frank Clark with Colin Barrett switching sides and John McGovern returned for John O'Hare in midfield after a run of nine consecutive appearances there for us. O'Hare was apparently taken ill the night before so would have played.

Leeds made just one change, a switch in Scottish goalkeepers called David. Harvey out. Stewart in.

Since we'd last played Leeds (beating them home and away in the League Cup semi-finals, after losing to them in the league) they'd acquired a new center back called Paul Hart. A signing from Blackpool on transfer deadline day. This would be his ninth appearance of 191 he made for Leeds before joining Forest (between 1983 and 1985) and ultimately becoming our manager between 2001 and 2004.

Paul Madeley made his 453rd appearance for Leeds that day.


Nottingham Forest
1 Peter Shilton, 2 Colin Barrett, 3 Frank Clark, 4 John McGovern, 5 Larry Lloyd, 6 Kenny Burns, 7 Martin O'Neill, 8 Archie Gemmill, 9 Peter Withe, 10 Ian Bowyer, 11 John Robertson.
Goals: Peter Withe 65m.


Leeds United
1 David Stewart, 2 Paul Madeley, 3 Peter Hampton, 4 Brian Flynn, 5 Paul Hart, 6 Trevor Cherry, 7 Frank Gray, 8 Eddie Gray, 9 Ray Hankin, 10 Tony Currie, 11 Arthur Graham.
Goals : Frank Gray 41m (pen.).

Attendance 38,662

The Game

I took my place in the Trent End as Forest were to kick towards us in the first half.

Leeds started positively and Shilton was called upon twice in the opening minutes. Colin Barrett got Forest's first shot in but then a nice Leeds move involving Tony Currie and Eddie Gray ended with Brian Flynn bringing out a great save from shilts.

At the other end, Robbo had a shot saved before a 30 yarder from Tony Currie flew wide of Shilton's goal. Then Hankin missed a chance as Leeds looked the more likely team to score.

Forest came back at 'em with Gemmill playing well. Stewart saved from Robertson and then Withe had a glancing header that just missed. Hart was lucky to get away without a booking after clattering into Ian Bowyer.

t was end to end stuff. Ray Hankin flashed a volley past the post then O'Neill headed just the wrong side of the post. Shilton made another great save from a Hankin header and Larry Lloyd had a shot at the Leeds goal.

Then Leeds were awarded a controversial penalty. This is how John Shipley describes it:

"After winning the ball in defence, skipper John McGovern could only watch in horror as his clearance bounced off the referee to Brian Flynn. The Welshman chose to center the ball rather than shoot. Eddie Gray and Colin Barrett both went for the ball and to everyone's surprise, referee McDonald blew for a forty-first minute penalty, ruling that Barrett had pushed the Scotsman. Forest's protests fell on deaf ears. Frank Gray hammered his left-foot shot wide of Shilton to put Leeds ahead; a truly controversial penalty if ever there was one."

One might say that the referee had a rubbish bin where his heart should be - but the damage was done and Forest went in at half time 0-1 down despite Ian Bowyer almost grabbing an immediate equaliser.

In the second half Leeds slowed the game down to frustrate Forest but the reds started to build momentum and had a strong penalty claim turned down when Paul Madeley appeared to bring Robbo down in the box. Ian Bowyer finally put the ball in the net on the hour mark but the 'goal' was disallowed by the increasingly unpopular referee from Birmingham.

Forest finally got the equaliser their play just about deserved.

The move was started by Frank Clark who got past Tony Currie, pulled the ball back from the byline to Peter Withe who gleefully turned it past David Stewart for his first goal in 49 days.

Forest piled on the pressure to try to get the win but Leeds hung on for a deserved point.

Peter Withe's Last Goal for Us

Peter Withe's 65th minute equaliser was the last goal he'd score for us in a competitive match. 

Peter Withe's last goal for us

Peter Withe in action against Paul Hart (copyright Neville Chadwick Photography)

Here's a table and a chart of Peter Withe's goals for Forest...




Withe's goals plotted against a crossbar and nets - a Forest invention

There aren't many clips of Peter Withe scoring for Forest but here's one that all Forest fans will love, showing his brace in the 3-0 win against Derby early in the season. It was right in the middle of his Forest career and most prolific patch of goals for us.



Withe would score one more goal for Forest next season, in the Charity Shield match at Wembley against Ipswich Town. He would also start for Forest in their opening match in their title defence season, at home to newly promoted Tottenham Hotspur but that would be his last game for us. Apparently he had a bust up with Brian Clough about money and there was only going to be one result from that. Forest were going to be Withe-out as he joined Aston Villa.

Only at Nottingham for two seasons but Peter Withe made a big impact

Peter Withe and Tony Woodcock!



Thanks for the memories, Peter!

The Unbeaten Run Continues

Leeds, remember, were the last team to beat Forest in the league, way back in November, 147 days and 20 games ago.


And our unbeaten home record (in all competitions) was growing even more impressively. Now standing at 29.



Other Games

Everton's 1-0 win (via a Bob Latchford penalty) against Ipswich closed the gap below us back to four points but the good news was that Liverpool had failed to win at Bristol City. Peter Cormack (ex-Forest, of course) scored a second half equaliser against his previous club to deny them a chance to give Forest a bit of a scare.


Leicester were finally put out of their misery by in-form Birmingham City. Four second half goals from Terry Hibbitt (his last for Birmingham before returning to Newcastle), Gary Pendry, Keith Bertschin and, of course, Trevor Francis committed them to the second division. Our other local rivals got thrashed that day too.

Here's how West Ham brushed Derby aside to give their hopes of survival a new lease of life...


Liverpool could now only get 59 points and so, with a vastly superior goal difference, Forest really only needed another three points from six games to lift the title.

Leicester relegated certainly, Newcastle, almost certainly.


Bob Latchford seemed to be doing enough to resist Trevor Francis' challenge as the league's top goal scorer. Peter Withe went back to the front of Forest's top scorers for the season.


Wolves also looked like they were heading for the drop, such was their current form.


Elsewhere the race to the first division was getting very exciting.

Spurs fans try to get the game stopped
Spurs seemed to have the second division title in the bag the Saturday before when they'd beaten promotion challengers Bolton Wanderers 1-0 at White Hart Lane in front of over 50,000 fans but this week it was all different as they lost 3-1 at the Goldstone Ground to Brighton & Hove Albion. There were violent scenes as fighting broke out on the packed terraces and the game was suspended for 14 minutes after Spurs went 3-1 down and had Don McAlister sent off and their fans invaded the pitch, apparently in an attempt to get the game abandoned.

Tight at the top and bottom - Brighton & Mansfield still with hope
There was no rest for Forest after this game. They faced Queen's Park Rangers (for the fifth time this season) at the City Ground the following Tuesday.

The Programme

















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