NOTTINGHAM FOREST THE 1970's

option but to take the players off and give the
police chance to restore order.
Looking back now, it is hard to imagine the
blasé attitude the authorities took to the
situation. The Forest players were shellshocked,
George Lyall recalls the mood in
the dressing room. ‘We just sat around for
about ten minutes and then they told us we
had to go out again, we had some players
who were really shaken up, but no-one asked
us our opinion.’
The atmosphere in the ground was tense,
3-1 up and against ten men Forest should
have gone through, but with malevolence in
the air, anything was possible. Recalling the
events now, Ian Bowyer almost blames the
players themselves for not being professional
enough to see the job through, what was
certain though, Newcastle raised their game
and helped by a couple of goalkeeping errors
and a limp performance from an obviously
intimidated referee, the Magpies turned
the game on its head with three goals in
seventeen minutes. For anybody to imply
that the events of that afternoon had not
influenced the result was inconceivable, but
that was Newcastle did, John Tudor claimed
that they had been ‘unlucky’ in the past, but
this time ‘luck’ was on their side. Jim Barron
had made some mistakes but as he says ‘I
couldn’t stand back and position myself
properly because of the crowd and I had to
keep one eye looking out for missiles’
One would have thought that the FA would
announce their own enquiry, but times
were different back then and it was left to
Reds Chairman Jim Willmer to send off a
telegram to the FA with an official complaint.
Although most of the football world sided
with Forest, some thought it was sour grapes
and many thought there was little chance of
the appeal succeeding.
The FA announced that the appeal would be
heard by the four most senior members of
the Football Association under the auspices
of Lord Stevens. Nottingham Forest would
send a delegation of four including Jim
Willmer, Allan Brown, Ken Smales and Dave
Serella who would give a first hand account
of what happened on the pitch.
Newcastle would be sending their chairman
Lord Westwood, manager Joe Harvey and
captain Bob Moncur.
Lord Westwood was himself one of the most
high ranking members of the FA and there
were many who thought that there was
going to be a clear conflict of interest.
As it turned out, the appeals committee
only needed ninety minutes before they
announced that the result of the game
would be declared void and Cup Tie would
be replayed at Goodison Park, Everton the
following Monday.
Once more thousands of Reds fans made
the journey to Merseyside and saw the team
robbed again. Ian Bowyer explains why
the players felt so aggrieved, ‘We had been
working on a free kick routine that involved
looking like we had messed up, several
players converging on the ball at the same
time, it worked like a dream and I rifled
the ball home. We couldn’t believe it when
the referee disallowed it for ungentlemanly
conduct’. The game ended 0-0, but at least
Forest would now have a home game to try
and finish the job.
There was disbelief all round when the FA
announced that the replay would again
be held at Everton, meaning that the Reds
would be the first ever team to play three
games away in the same round of the Cup.
It transpired that Lord Westwood had
appealed to his fellow members on the FA
executive committee that the Newcastle
players would not be safe in Nottingham, as
the fans would be looking for revenge. The
FA agreed, so a third game was scheduled for
the Thursday again at Everton and despite
matching their Division One opponents
once more, Malcolm Macdonald scored the
only goal of the game.
The terraces at football grounds were
lawless places at this time, much like the
battlegrounds of industrial disputes. This
incident was not an isolated one, every week
disturbances were reported. There was
rough play on the pitch and things came to
a head that same week when referee Clive
Thomas was forced to order both teams in
the Manchester derby to the dressing room
after Lou Macari of United and Mike Doyle
of City refused to leave the pitch after being
sent off.
This whole affair was to have a detrimental
effect on the Reds season. They had already
slipped behind after losing fixtures to the
Cup run, but as George Lyall explained,
‘There was just a feeling of anti-climax, we
were Second Division players who had a
once in a career opportunity to reach an FA
Cup semi-final against Burnley, everybody
in our team would have backed us to beat
them’.
The Reds were forced to play a league game
away at Fulham just two days after losing to
Newcastle, a tired looking Forest slipped to
a 2-0 defeat to the Londoners who had new
signing Bobby Moore in defence.
After the successful introduction of the new
club badge, there were serious discussions
about whether the club should just be known
as Forest and drop the Nottingham as Orient
had done. Luckily sanity prevailed and the
idea was kicked out. On a positive note,
the club announced plans to expand the
supporters groups and make match tickets
available from outlets around the county.
A home victory 2-0, courtesy of a couple of
goals from George Lyall was the only bright
spot as only two further points were gained
from the next five fixtures. The worst result
was an undeserved 2-1 home defeat to a
relegation bound Crystal Palace.
The promotion dream finally died over three
fixtures played in four days over Easter. The
small squad were unable to cope with fatigue
and injury, how manager Allan Brown could
have done with some quality reserves now.
Unbelievably the fixture list took the Reds
up to Carlisle on the Friday, followed by a
fixture 400 miles away at Bristol City the
next day before the return game against the
same opposition on the Monday.
George Lyall recalls the trip from Carlisle.
‘The manager knew we were knackered and
let us have a few beers on the coach, how
they expected us to play after that journey I
will never know’.
With one eye on next season the manager
96 NOTTINGHAM FOREST IN THE 1970s
NOTTINGHAM FOREST IN THE 1970s 97