"Commons is a Judas....."

[Phooey]

Megson signed.

John Curtis
Darryl Powell (all will be forgotten if his youngest son is as good as they say )
David Friio
Scott Dobie
Rune Pedersen
Nicky Eaden
Nicky Southall (pass)
Gary Holt
Gino Padula
Ian Breckin (pass)
Danny Cullip
Nathan Tyson (pass)
Julian Bennett (pass)
Grant Holt (passish)
Sammy Clingan

Some beauty loan signings like Andy Melville & Eugene Dadi.


What a time. What a collection.

For some reason I decided to pain myself and remind myself of this era as I was looking up a few things.

Hmm, I disagree with a few of those but then it's all about knocking Megson.

John Curtis - first choice right back who came in on a free and ended up rejecting us for QPR.
David Friio - injured and then retired.
Scott Dobie - injured.
Rune Pedersen - backup keeper so didn't really get a chance to shine.
Gino Padula - played 3 games for us so not really any time to make a judgement.
Danny Cullip - injured whilst Megson was manager.

We were a crap Championship side and then a middling League One side, we were never going to attract amazing signings but at least they weren't drawing £30k+ a week to either not play or be terrible.

 

[Phooey]

We also drew with Weymouth and Salisbury City in the Fa Cup around that time. The Chester loss was a hammering as well wasnt it?

Utterly grim.

Salisbury was under Calderwood, Chester was when the team (or at least a fair few of them) threw the game to try and get rid of Megson.

 

[Phooey]

In fairness any manager could see that the squad needed replacing because of some of the characters in it, specifically disruptive influences, but this shouldn't be something Megson takes the credit for as some sort of levelling up bargain for all the stuff he did do which wasn't good, which was pretty much all the rest of it.

He could and should have kept us up that season, because we weren't that bad, and a fair amount of injuries had stopped us fielding a settled team for much of the time under Kinnear. Most of the defeats were reasonably narrow and it just needed someone to keep us tight at the back and attack teams more (we still had DJ, Taylor, King at the club) but this was made harder because Kinnear had to let Williams go and wasn't able to replace him really.

Instead we turned in some of the most abject displays ever seen by a Forest side
Coventry
Plymouth
Ipswich
QPR (where there had been reports that the players had been partying wasn't there? So Megson clearly managed to keep the discipline then?)

1 win in our last 11 games shows we really did go down without much of a fight and over the summer Megson brought more shit in and we carried on struggling
Yeovil
Oldham
I think we lost to Chester in one of the cups too

Things improved when the manager who presumably constantly berated the players, destroyed their confidence, told them they were shit etc finally left the club though it was mainly Calderwood's signings who were key - Agogo, Smith, Chambers in the first season, and we brought in McCleary, Wilson, Cohen and Davies for the 2nd, as we could progressively get rid of most of the shit Megson brought, which was pretty much all of it bar Breckin, Southall, Tyson and Grant Holt.

Let's not forget that Joe Kinnear was slated continuously on this forum for his time at Wimbledon and the reason he was sacked was because we'd had a terrible run with last straw being losing 3-0 to the sheep. We had players who were better than that but would only play when they wanted to.

After Megson left it wasn't all rosey either, remember the 5-0 drubbing by Oldham on Boxing Day? Or the complete capitulation to Yeovil in the playoffs later that season?

We were terrible before he came and better after he left, but not much better afterwards. Compare that to say Platt, who started with a near Prem side, or Hughton, who came with a great pedigree, and he's not great but neither is he the great Satan he seems to have turned in to.

 

[Statto]

Let's not forget that Joe Kinnear was slated continuously on this forum for his time at Wimbledon and the reason he was sacked was because we'd had a terrible run with last straw being losing 3-0 to the sheep. We had players who were better than that but would only play when they wanted to.

After Megson left it wasn't all rosey either, remember the 5-0 drubbing by Oldham on Boxing Day? Or the complete capitulation to Yeovil in the playoffs later that season?

We were terrible before he came and better after he left, but not much better afterwards. Compare that to say Platt, who started with a near Prem side, or Hughton, who came with a great pedigree, and he's not great but neither is he the great Satan he seems to have turned in to.

I agree with Platt. He took a decent side who had admittedly been relegated without much of a whimper but still had plenty of decent players, and also, actually strengthened it with the likes of Brennan, the italians, Scimeca, John, then later on Robbie Blake, David Johnson, Jack Lester, all of whom were decent Championship players, but he couldn't get them more than half way. It still amazes me he was the last manager someone paid us to take.

I actually think Kinnear gets an unfair press off some people. As you say some were never going to like him because of Wimbledon but actually they were a lot more direct before Kinnear, under Gould and Bassett, than when he'd finished with them, he also kept them in the top flight with a very minimal budget - that interview when he went back to Newcastle might have been short in the actual precise facts but generally it is true, they had to find cheap players from non league or abroad (they did with Norway a fair bit) and sell them to bigger clubs, he did this constantly, and the basic style of play was necessary to survive. He didn't play that way at Luton and he didn't try and do it here, nor did Bassett here.

Suppose the other thing people get annoyed with was the comments about the club's history and Clough especially as he had died about that time but actually yes, objectively he had a point there too, when you're in the bottom of the 2nd division you don't need constant reminders of people going on about the European Cup do you? It's not relevant to the hear and now and to an extent does act like a millstone in certain cases. Probably not the best thing to go on about it though.

Yet another manager the club expected to do better with less resources. He did well to plug the obvious gaps the first season (with Rogers, Impey, Evans and Gerrard) and for very little, then they let Williams go but didn't let him replace him, though they brought in Commons and James, and not really anyone else, so you're going from Williams to the likes of Bopp, Jess, Nowland, not surprising we struggled more.

Until that 3-0 Derby game, which pretty much ended him because of what he said around it, we lost every match by 1 goal apart from the 1-4 vs Coventry. We honestly weren't that bad and I think if the club had actually backed Kinnear with a decent replacement for Williams we wouldn't have gone down.

 

[valspoodle]

Megson is the only manager I've actually harangued from the terraces.

I must say I can't remember why, I can't remember what happened before or after him, but I remember feeling the lowest I have for a long time with him at the helm.

It just felt all wrong and sour.

 

[Lee]

"Irons in the fire"

 

[Master Yates]

We were 13th when he resigned; not waiting to be sacked and then getting paid for the following year or so.

Unlike many of our more recent managers.

4 points above Walsall in the last relegation spot, having played a game extra and coming off the back of one win in ten. He would have relegated us if he’d stayed, 100%. Still the worst football I have ever seen in my whole life.

I can’t see how any Forest fan can defend him. Barlow and McParland took the same squad and won 28 points from 13 games.

Never mind getting paid off, he should’ve been paying us to watch that turgid shit.


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[Phooey]

I agree with Platt. He took a decent side who had admittedly been relegated without much of a whimper but still had plenty of decent players, and also, actually strengthened it with the likes of Brennan, the italians, Scimeca, John, then later on Robbie Blake, David Johnson, Jack Lester, all of whom were decent Championship players, but he couldn't get them more than half way. It still amazes me he was the last manager someone paid us to take.

I actually think Kinnear gets an unfair press off some people. As you say some were never going to like him because of Wimbledon but actually they were a lot more direct before Kinnear, under Gould and Bassett, than when he'd finished with them, he also kept them in the top flight with a very minimal budget - that interview when he went back to Newcastle might have been short in the actual precise facts but generally it is true, they had to find cheap players from non league or abroad (they did with Norway a fair bit) and sell them to bigger clubs, he did this constantly, and the basic style of play was necessary to survive. He didn't play that way at Luton and he didn't try and do it here, nor did Bassett here.

Suppose the other thing people get annoyed with was the comments about the club's history and Clough especially as he had died about that time but actually yes, objectively he had a point there too, when you're in the bottom of the 2nd division you don't need constant reminders of people going on about the European Cup do you? It's not relevant to the hear and now and to an extent does act like a millstone in certain cases. Probably not the best thing to go on about it though.

Yet another manager the club expected to do better with less resources. He did well to plug the obvious gaps the first season (with Rogers, Impey, Evans and Gerrard) and for very little, then they let Williams go but didn't let him replace him, though they brought in Commons and James, and not really anyone else, so you're going from Williams to the likes of Bopp, Jess, Nowland, not surprising we struggled more.

Until that 3-0 Derby game, which pretty much ended him because of what he said around it, we lost every match by 1 goal apart from the 1-4 vs Coventry. We honestly weren't that bad and I think if the club had actually backed Kinnear with a decent replacement for Williams we wouldn't have gone down.

It's Platt that did it for me as well. I think since then I've been too punch drunk to get worked up. Plus, I started reading up on our history and once you've found that historically your place is bottom half of the first division/top half of the second you then realise what a job Clough did for us.

 

[Phooey]

4 points above Walsall in the last relegation spot, having played a game extra and coming off the back of one win in ten. He would have relegated us if he’d stayed, 100%. Still the worst football I have ever seen in my whole life.

I can’t see how any Forest fan can defend him. Barlow and McParland took the same squad and won 28 points from 13 games.

Never mind getting paid off, he should’ve been paying us to watch that turgid shit.


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I'm amazed that any football fan, never mind Forest fan, can brush over having players who have thrown games because they didn't like the manager. If I actively worked against my business I would be sacked, on the spot and quite rightly. Why it's suddenly different for a well paid footballer I will never know.

 

[Phooey]

Megson is the only manager I've actually harangued from the terraces.

I must say I can't remember why, I can't remember what happened before or after him, but I remember feeling the lowest I have for a long time with him at the helm.

It just felt all wrong and sour.

Worse than the playoff game against Yeovil?

That's the only time my wife has had to hide the matches to stop me from burning my Forest shirt.

 

[cheapseats]

I agree with Platt. He took a decent side who had admittedly been relegated without much of a whimper but still had plenty of decent players, and also, actually strengthened it with the likes of Brennan, the italians, Scimeca, John, then later on Robbie Blake, David Johnson, Jack Lester, all of whom were decent Championship players, but he couldn't get them more than half way. It still amazes me he was the last manager someone paid us to take.

I actually think Kinnear gets an unfair press off some people. As you say some were never going to like him because of Wimbledon but actually they were a lot more direct before Kinnear, under Gould and Bassett, than when he'd finished with them, he also kept them in the top flight with a very minimal budget - that interview when he went back to Newcastle might have been short in the actual precise facts but generally it is true, they had to find cheap players from non league or abroad (they did with Norway a fair bit) and sell them to bigger clubs, he did this constantly, and the basic style of play was necessary to survive. He didn't play that way at Luton and he didn't try and do it here, nor did Bassett here.

Suppose the other thing people get annoyed with was the comments about the club's history and Clough especially as he had died about that time but actually yes, objectively he had a point there too, when you're in the bottom of the 2nd division you don't need constant reminders of people going on about the European Cup do you? It's not relevant to the hear and now and to an extent does act like a millstone in certain cases. Probably not the best thing to go on about it though.

Yet another manager the club expected to do better with less resources. He did well to plug the obvious gaps the first season (with Rogers, Impey, Evans and Gerrard) and for very little, then they let Williams go but didn't let him replace him, though they brought in Commons and James, and not really anyone else, so you're going from Williams to the likes of Bopp, Jess, Nowland, not surprising we struggled more.

Until that 3-0 Derby game, which pretty much ended him because of what he said around it, we lost every match by 1 goal apart from the 1-4 vs Coventry. We honestly weren't that bad and I think if the club had actually backed Kinnear with a decent replacement for Williams we wouldn't have gone down.

I thought Kinnear was awful. Apart from the patented short term bounce we got related to his tub thumping in the dressing room when he came in, he was useless and the team seemed to be in a long and slow downward spiral under him. He always struck me as the most lackadaisical manager. Hes was the sort of bloke who I bet never took any training sessions and I bet he didn't know 1/2 the players names.
I just hated the casualness with which he handled himself and the club. I mean say what you like about Hughton but I always felt he took his job seriously and was proud to represent NFFC. With Joe I just felt he didn't give a shit really...

 

[Master Yates]

I'm amazed that any football fan, never mind Forest fan, can brush over having players who have thrown games because they didn't like the manager. If I actively worked against my business I would be sacked, on the spot and quite rightly. Why it's suddenly different for a well paid footballer I will never know.

Tossers like Alan Rogers who were not bothering get the same amount of respect from me as they gave to the shirt, but it doesn’t change the fact that Megson was an unmitigated disaster for Nottingham Forest Football Club, and for me, remains our worst ever manager - by quite some distance.


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[Strummer]

An excuse to dig this up again then:

 

[Statto]

I thought Kinnear was awful. Apart from the patented short term bounce we got related to his tub thumping in the dressing room when he came in, he was useless and the team seemed to be in a long and slow downward spiral under him. He always struck me as the most lackadaisical manager. Hes was the sort of bloke who I bet never took any training sessions and I bet he didn't know 1/2 the players names.
I just hated the casualness with which he handled himself and the club. I mean say what you like about Hughton but I always felt he took his job seriously and was proud to represent NFFC. With Joe I just felt he didn't give a shit really...

I think it would be wrong to suggest a professional football manager wouldn't give a shit, though you could see how it might come across that way.

Don't forget he had a heart attack before so maybe he'd been advised to avoid stress and so was more relaxed, but actually I kind of get the impression he was like that at Wimbledon anyway, with all the crazy gang stuff. I think yes, you do get a fair amount of Megson types who endlessly shout at their players but you also get the ones who relax and trust them, allow them to express themselves, and from what some of his players have said Kinnear was one of those. Personally I know which one I'd rather work for.

He really wasn't helped at all by the stupid serious for promotion campaign on the season tickets and the club not allowing him to replace Williams. If he then came over as less bothered then that's unprofessional but potentially understandable more if he'd been talking to ND and MA about it and felt he didn't have the backing from his employers.

 

[cheapseats]

I think it would be wrong to suggest a professional football manager wouldn't give a shit, though you could see how it might come across that way.

Don't forget he had a heart attack before so maybe he'd been advised to avoid stress and so was more relaxed, but actually I kind of get the impression he was like that at Wimbledon anyway, with all the crazy gang stuff. I think yes, you do get a fair amount of Megson types who endlessly shout at their players but you also get the ones who relax and trust them, allow them to express themselves, and from what some of his players have said Kinnear was one of those. Personally I know which one I'd rather work for.

He really wasn't helped at all by the stupid serious for promotion campaign on the season tickets and the club not allowing him to replace Williams. If he then came over as less bothered then that's unprofessional but potentially understandable more if he'd been talking to ND and MA about it and felt he didn't have the backing from his employers.

You’re probably right and it was a long time ago so it’s as much about remembering sentiment as fact for me.
It was yet another example of the Forest speciality of making sure we put in place as many elements as we could to make it hard for success. But even if everything else had been right I don’t for a minute think Kinnear could have been a success for us and the more I think of it the more I can’t understand why on earth anyone would think he’d be a good fit for us….

 

[Raymondo Ponte']

We're no good at "Good-fits".

 

[Master Yates]

I thought Kinnear was awful. Apart from the patented short term bounce we got related to his tub thumping in the dressing room when he came in, he was useless and the team seemed to be in a long and slow downward spiral under him. He always struck me as the most lackadaisical manager. Hes was the sort of bloke who I bet never took any training sessions and I bet he didn't know 1/2 the players names.
I just hated the casualness with which he handled himself and the club. I mean say what you like about Hughton but I always felt he took his job seriously and was proud to represent NFFC. With Joe I just felt he didn't give a shit really...

I was the same with Kinnear. Lazy and not bothered was how he came across to me. Despite desperately needing a midfielder, he would constantly say there’s nothing out there, while good midfielders were moving on loan to our rivals every week or so. I got the impression he was doing the bare minimum, and just getting paid. Didn’t help that he was also a twat.

I had the same impression of McClaren when he started making signings. First he clogs up the midfield with crap be remembered from previous jobs, when we had the likes of Cohen, Majewski and Moussi here already (indicating he knew nothing about our squad) then when we signed Andy Reid he said something along the lines of, “ someone told me Andy was available on a free and I said, is he? Let’s get him in then…”

Championship manager unaware of free agent just been released from PL team = red flag. Turned out to be true, McClaren was useless.


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[Statto]

I was the same with Kinnear. Lazy and not bothered was how he came across to me. Despite desperately needing a midfielder, he would constantly say there’s nothing out there, while good midfielders were moving on loan to our rivals every week or so. I got the impression he was doing the bare minimum, and just getting paid. Didn’t help that he was also a twat.

I had the same impression of McClaren when he started making signings. First he clogs up the midfield with crap be remembered from previous jobs, when we had the likes of Cohen, Majewski and Moussi here already (indicating he knew nothing about our squad) then when we signed Andy Reid he said something along the lines of, “ someone told me Andy was available on a free and I said, is he? Let’s get him in then…”

Championship manager unaware of free agent just been released from PL team = red flag. Turned out to be true, McClaren was useless.


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Agree with you about McClaren, but not about Kinnear.

Don't forget this was still the time of Doughty and Arthur trying to reduce costs and run the club on the cheap.

And also that you don't know what was going on behind the scenes. It is not without the realms of possibility that Kinnear was indeed aware of those players, wanted to sign them, but the board wouldn't pay for it. And if we assume for a few minutes that this situation is true, as a manager who is constantly identifying targets to improve a position you desperately need in a squad which has had 3-4 years of constant stripping out of any asset and not replacing them, it could act as a natural demotivator even with the best will in the world. And in that situation how far would you go on the resign vs let your employer sack you argument?

 

[Master Yates]

Agree with you about McClaren, but not about Kinnear.

Don't forget this was still the time of Doughty and Arthur trying to reduce costs and run the club on the cheap.

And also that you don't know what was going on behind the scenes. It is not without the realms of possibility that Kinnear was indeed aware of those players, wanted to sign them, but the board wouldn't pay for it. And if we assume for a few minutes that this situation is true, as a manager who is constantly identifying targets to improve a position you desperately need in a squad which has had 3-4 years of constant stripping out of any asset and not replacing them, it could act as a natural demotivator even with the best will in the world. And in that situation how far would you go on the resign vs let your employer sack you argument?

Kinnear didn’t even move to Nottingham did he? Not exactly committed. Either way, he was shit after the initial new manager bounce


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[cheapseats]

Agree with you about McClaren, but not about Kinnear.

Don't forget this was still the time of Doughty and Arthur trying to reduce costs and run the club on the cheap.

And also that you don't know what was going on behind the scenes. It is not without the realms of possibility that Kinnear was indeed aware of those players, wanted to sign them, but the board wouldn't pay for it. And if we assume for a few minutes that this situation is true, as a manager who is constantly identifying targets to improve a position you desperately need in a squad which has had 3-4 years of constant stripping out of any asset and not replacing them, it could act as a natural demotivator even with the best will in the world. And in that situation how far would you go on the resign vs let your employer sack you argument?

It was a miserable time to be supporting Forest that’s for sure but Kinnear was at a club in Wimbledon who sold their assets at every opportunity so it can hardly have been a shock to him. Add to that that 85% of clubs are hand to mouth sellers and unless you can land Liverpool or Manure that’s the game…

 

[marshal99]

kinnear was screwed when mick harford did not came with him in him as his assistant during pre-season. Get the feeling that harford was the one that organised all the fitness training and coaching and kinnear doing it alone in the summer was always a bad idea and mick only coming in nov was too late.

 

[Phooey]

Don't forget this was still the time of Doughty and Arthur trying to reduce costs and run the club on the cheap.

I think this is also a key point. Someone posted some stats on Doughty's business profits over his time owning Forest and you could see where they weren't making any money pretty much tallied with times when we only need small improvements to get us over the line. When he did have money to spend it was thrown at the wrong things. Wikipedia says he spent £100 million during his time in charge and that's a lot of money to spend getting a team to almost the same position it was in when he started.

The combination of a lack of money when needed, wrong/poor/indisciplined players, poor managers and bad luck are why we have struggled over the last 20+ years.

 

[Chappers85]

I think this is also a key point. Someone posted some stats on Doughty's business profits over his time owning Forest and you could see where they weren't making any money pretty much tallied with times when we only need small improvements to get us over the line. When he did have money to spend it was thrown at the wrong things. Wikipedia says he spent £100 million during his time in charge and that's a lot of money to spend getting a team to almost the same position it was in when he started.

The combination of a lack of money when needed, wrong/poor/indisciplined players, poor managers and bad luck are why we have struggled over the last 20+ years.

Absolutely. You can't fault Nigel Doughty for the amount he invested and I think genuine love of the football club. But a lot of that money was ploughed in to make up for lack of investment elsewhere. £8m for Reid and Dawson was a great sum at the time, but being stuck in League One for 3 years must have cost way more than £8m. Had we kept them until the Summer, or re-invested some of that money, we may have stayed up (even under that moron Megson). We sell Harewood for £500k and replace him with King for £1m (probably higher wages and a signing-on bonus too) - so we spent more on a player's replacement who isn't as good (maybe he did have more potential) and had a very dubious background and character even then instead of giving the proven goalscorer who we've nurtured through the club the pay rise he deserves. We could have also signed Huckerby for £750k (yes, I know wages) or Danny Webber (probably a good thing as he flopped elsewhere), or even King himself, in the Summer for £1m, but instead we panic buy an injured Gareth Taylor for £500k. The annoying thing is, if we'd bought King as our 3rd striker, when Johnson broke his leg, he would have probably been an ideal replacement to play up-front with Harewood, Marlon #2 could've done what he was good which was playing centrally, letting Marlon #1 maraud down the channels. It just seemed we were always paying more money later on because we were too tight-fisted to pay it at the time. It still irks me over 15 years later.

On another note, I never understood why Kinnear never played Reid in the middle to replace Williams, as we already had Commons in place as Reid's replacement. I know Reid developed into more of a central midfielder later on, but he would've done a better job than anyone else we had.