When Liverpool Fans Went Home Happy.
They did so yesterday, and in the 2022 FA Cup tie, and despite losing, in 1978. Or at least, some of them did.
(The Liverpool team bus arrives at the City Ground before the European Cup first round, first leg on 13 September 1978. Original: Jimmy Smith)
We all know how this one played out. Garry Birtles, Colin Barrett and “Will two goals be enough?” and all that.
Prior to this game, Liverpool had won their opening five games, including a 7-0 demolition of Tottenham Hotspur. In contrast, Forest had drawn four and won one. Liverpool manager, Bob Paisley, was wiser than to be fooled by such fripperies though. “Forest are a good team and they must come good soon. We’ve had them watched. I’ve watched them myself and sometimes you can be misled by what you see. Before the season began, I said that we were stepping up the tempo of our early training with the Forest games in mind.”
The respect went both ways with Brian Clough requiring little invitation to heap praise on Paisley. “All games are between manager and manager. He is obviously no fool and I like him. There are people who were linked with the England job last season who can’t hold a candle to him. We could talk about their strengths for hours. Instead I will talk about their possible weaknesses. For instance, we played them four times last season and they scored only one goal.”
As the Liverpool team bus pulled into the City Ground – making its way past various bell-bottomed, jean-wearing Forest fans – confidence was no doubt high, buoyed on by the Liverpool Echo reporting a few days earlier that “Forest supporters have not been falling over themselves to buy tickets for the first leg at the City Ground next Wednesday night. This apathy has provided Liverpool fans with a healthy windfall of around 4,000 tickets they could never have expected.”
Echo columnist, Michael Charters, maintained this theme and was in bullish mood. “Are some Forest fans so disenchanted by the mediocre start of their team – one goal in the first four league games – that they can’t be bothered to turn up for a European classic, a game that is being described as the biggest in Forest’s history? If this is the case, they can hardly deserve to call themselves supporters in the true sense of the word.”
As it turned out, plenty of Forest supporters crammed into the ground that evening and witnessed an iconic game before heading home. But for travelling Liverpool fan, Paul Sweeney and his friends, the night was just beginning. “We were supposed to meet our driver from a Wallasey coach firm outside the Flying Horse Hotel in the city centre. We waited for an hour and there was no sign of him. We told the police about the mess we were in – no place to stay, no way to get home. So they offered to take us in for the night in the cells. It is really fantastic of them to help us like this.”
A 2-0 defeat and a night in the Nottingham cells – away days can be pure misery sometimes.
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Fisk (Netflix):
If you enjoyed Colin From Accounts (and you would be a strange beast if you didn’t) have a swing at this: a six-episode half-hour sitcom that follows a recently divorced contract lawyer, Helen, who has moved from Sydney to a small and unglamorous suburban Melbourne firm. Very very funny.
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.