(Gianluca Vialli tying his laces at the Umbro Cup, August 1996. Pic: Mark Leech)
We don’t have pre-season tournament like the Umbro Cup anymore, which is a huge shame.
In August 1996, the City Ground hosted the Umbro Cup – a mini tournament played over two games involving Forest, Manchester United, Ajax and Chelsea. On day one, Forest played out a goalless draw with Chelsea, meaning a neatly shoot-out. Just over a month or so after Stuart Pearce violently hammered his penalty home against Spain at Wembley, he was unable to convert here. Neither was Scot Gemmill, meaning Chelsea ventured to the final to meet Ajax, who dispatched United 2-1.
The next day, Forest and United played out a third-place play-off. Kevin Campbell slotted home after just ten minutes in the glorious yellow wasp vomit shirt. Equally idiosyncratic was United’s kit which resembled a Sheffield Wednesday strip. With eight minutes remaining, a young buck called David Beckham equalised with a very David Beckham goal – outside the box, he lined one up and laser-guided it into the corner. Five minutes later Brian McClair put United ahead and in the final minute, the place saw an equally idiosyncratic act – Phil Neville slaloming through the Forest defence and finishing with grace and elan.
Straight after, Ajax faced Chelsea. With Glenn Hoddle taking the England reigns that summer, Ruud Gullit stepped into the hot seat and signed Gianfranco Zola, Roberto Di Matteo and Champions League winning striker and Juventus captain, Gianluca Vialli.
Vialli was special. That whole generation who grew up watching Italian Football on Channel Four knew how special he was. He and Fabrizio Ravanelli simply tormented Serie A defences in the black and white stripes of Juve: they were irresistible, and it seemed like each time I caught a highlights package, they were setting each other up to violently thwack volleys into the net while the Alpine mist swirled around them in the Stadio Delle Alpi.
It was only 74 days since Vialli had scored in the Champions League Final for Juve against Ajax. That game went to penalties and Vialli’s parting gift to Juve was to lift the trophy before joining Chelsea. Here, after Chelsea eased into a two-goal lead before half-time, Vialli came off the bench at the interval and got down to business, troubling Edwin van der Sar on numerous occasions. Despite not scoring, an aura of greatness clung to him as he left the City Ground clutching the first of many trophies in Chelsea blue. They all count.
Under Gullit, Chelsea lifted the FA Cup at the end of the coming season while United won the title. Under Louis van Gaal, Ajax went on to have a disappointing season as their young Champions League winning squad of 1995 was in the process of being broken up and sold.
As for Forest, the season started well with Campbell bagging a hat-trick on the opening day at Highfield Road under the Coventry sunshine. After that, things went downhill.
Gianluca Vialli though remained majestic to the end. The guy oozed charisma and charm. Although he came from a wealthy family in Cremonese – home of Stradivarius and his violins – he was by all accounts totally unaffected by it and waltzed through life with class and humility. Somebody from whom we can all learn a thing or two.
Some Things I Didn’t Finish:
Then You Run
This series was on Sky a while back. Four teenagers get involved in various gangster-drug-deal-gone-wrong capers, leading to them being chased across Europe by unconvincing baddies. There were eight episodes. I got to around episode four, then stopped. I’ve just read the summary of the remaining episodes on wiki. I don’t think I missed much.
A Murder at the End of the World
Great cast. Great opening episode - reminiscent or Mr Robot, but I had more of an inkling what was going on here. I was all in for the first three episodes or so, and then Clive Owen had to pretend he was watching a colony of gigantic ant robots build a huge structure in the Icelandic wilderness … and then I stopped watching.
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 and edited two award-nominated fanzines.
If you do know me, I’m truly sorry.