Champions League would be fitting result for Forest team that punches above weight
MANCHESTER, England : Many of Matthew Oldroyd's memories as a Nottingham Forest fan involve climbing on to a bus to attend away games in unglamorous football destinations such as Oldham, Gillingham and Huddersfield.
Forest began this season tipped for relegation but on Sunday can clinch a place in the Champions League for the first time in more than 40 years, and Oldroyd said his apprenticeship as a Forest fan during some of the team's darkest days had made their current campaign that much sweeter.
"I am part of that generation where I got my timings wrong and I ended up watching quite a lot of bad football for 25 years," Oldroyd, author of Trailblazers: The Ground Breaking History of Nottingham Forest Football Club, told Reuters.
"It has made these recent successes much more enjoyable because we've been through that period of pain and turmoil, of course, and now we get to enjoy a team that are at the top end of the Premier League."
Forest famously won the European Cup in 1979 and 1980, under the management of Brian Clough, but have not played in Europe's elite club competition since the 1980-81 season.
They have enjoyed a remarkable renaissance this season under Nuno Espirito Santo - whose surname translates to English as "holy spirit" and who replaced Steve Cooper in December 2023. They became the first team in Premier League history to double their points tally from one season to the next.
The Reds host Chelsea in a dramatic season finale at the City Ground, with both teams among five chasing three remaining Champions League spots, along with Manchester City, Newcastle and Aston Villa.
The 40-year-old Oldroyd was born into a family of Forest fans and, while he missed out on the club's glory years under Clough, he has fond memories of singing arm-in-arm in City Ground's Trent End when it was a standing-room area.
"I don't think I really cared too much that we weren't that good. I was really happy to be going to watch Forest every week," said Oldroyd, who is also the co-founder of Forest fan group Forza Garibaldi.
His book, which he called a labour of love and was released earlier this year, traces the club's historical firsts, including the invention of shin pads. Forest player Samuel Weller Widdowson famously cut down a pair of cricket pads and strapped them over his socks in 1874. His team mates followed suit, thus Forest became the world's first team to wear them.
Seventh-placed Forest had been rooted in the top five for most of the season but have lost momentum in recent weeks and now need luck on their side in the jam-packed race for Champions League qualification.
They must beat Chelsea and also need Newcastle United or Aston Villa to drop points, while a draw or a loss would only be good enough to get into the Europa League or Conference League.
Oldroyd believes Champions League qualification would be "very typical of Forest being that club that punches above their weight".
"I will counter that to say, regardless of what happens, we should all remember that it's been a fantastic season and Forest have established themselves again as being one of the better teams in the country, which for so long we just haven't known," he said.
"Really a whole generation have known (Forest) as being a second-division club. So to now be challenging for Europe and playing in Europe next season is just really phenomenal. It really is."
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