The embers of the 2002/03 season were smouldering when Millwall came to the City Ground on 26 April. A point would secure Forest a play off spot under the management of Paul Hart. This they achieved after a pulsating 3-3 draw in which a stunning late strike from Neil Harris grabbed a point for the London club.
Bigger tests were around the corner for Forest who would face Sheffield United in the play offs.
While this game played out, Aron Ralston’s day was just getting started.
An adventurous and outdoors type, Ralston headed out to the Bluejohn Canyon in Utah to do some biking, hiking and climbing. While climbing down the canyon, he somehow managed to dislodge a huge boulder suspended above him, which fell down onto him and crushed his arm against the canyon wall.
He was stuck. He was alone. He had few provisions. Nobody knew exactly where he was. His arm was not just caught, it was well and truly wedged by a huge boulder that no amount of pushing, shoving or swearing would shift. He couldn’t simply channel the spirit the Hulk – he was not Doctor Bruce Banner. His arm was stuck there and either he would remain with it and die or … well … there was only really one other option.
We’ll avoid the particularly grisly details, but long story short, he used a drinking tube for a tourniquet, smashed the bones in his trapped arm and used a pen-knife to sever this decomposing arm. After an hour, he was able to escape the canyon, leaving his severed arm wedged there. He hiked for six miles until he was found by a family who alerted the rescue services. Ralston survived the ordeal.
So when a friend put it to me at half time against Fulham, that he would happily bite his hand off to walk away with a point, it was the the first of two demanding hypothetical questions of the day. We pondered: would it be better to bite your hand off or rip your own arm off as some sort of Robert Johnson deal with the devil in order to secure your desired outcome?
Speculation on this matter was rendered futile in any case as Forest were unable to handle a Fulham side who deservedly took all three points.
The second troubling hypothetical question of the day came later on and had the double whammy of being not only a difficult question to wrestle with in and of itself, but also the timing of it.
A group of us were at a gig after the Fulham game in east London. The support band finished and we eagerly awaited the main band. Excitement and anticipation was high. The lights dimmed. The stage was set. At which point, a friend chose this as the moment to ask two Forest obsessed friends whether the defeat earlier in the day might be the moment things go south for their team.
Now?! You want me to think about this right now?! You choose to lodge this into my brain right now?!
He saw our expressions and suddenly realised this was not the best time for a dissection of Forest’s achievements this season and what a realistic and satisfying outcome might look like. Such a response demanded sitting around a table, facilitated by a warm fire, pints and crisps and scrutiny of tables and fixture lists. He knew this, but leaned into his terrible timing and urged us – with a twinkle in his eye – to enjoy the show anyway!
So as the band strolled on and got straight down to business playing a song which has Bologna’s Renato Dall’Ara stadium as a chorus. But I was thrown. I was mouthing along to the words but my heart wasn’t quite in it yet. Might defeat at Fulham be a turning point? After all, Newcastle away was a tough next game and although it was the FA Cup with a weakened side, that was an excruciating experience but then again Bournemouth was bad but we followed that up with seven against Brighton and that run of games before Christmas looked tough but we went and won six in a row and other sides are struggling and have their eyes on other prizes but would the cup now become a distraction for us and what if Chris Wood got injured … oh, the first song has finished, quick, applaud.
This couldn’t go on. So I consoled myself with a few facts before mentally departing Forest world: we are third in the table, six points clear of seventh, and having the best season in a generation. Thirty years ago, Forest played some stinkers, which most people have forgotten about, before finishing third. Right. On with the show … at least until they sing that line about asking how many times in a single dull day can I pray to a league table and still it don’t change.
The point is that as bad as our day was, somebody is always having a worse one. We didn’t have to bite or rip any appendages from our body, which goes down as a little win in my book.
And staring at a league table and willing it to change when you are towards the top is infinitely more enjoyable than staring at one and willing it to change when towards the bottom.
One of my books, ‘The History Boys: Thirty Iconic Forest Goals’, has been reprinted in paperback, with a lovely review quote on the front cover. Click here if you fancy buying a copy.
I have almost completed the 92. Here are some observations from visiting lots of football grounds over the years.
If you don’t know me, I am the author of ‘Reds and Rams: The History of the East Midlands Derby’ and ‘The History Boys: Thirty Iconic Forest Goals’ (both available in the Forest club shop). I have written pieces for Mundial magazine, Football Weekends magazine, edited two award-nominated fanzines and was a columnist in the Nottingham Forest programme for eight years.
If you do know me, I’m truly sorry.
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