23 years of hurt

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Doha,really enjoying your trip down memory lane. I’d like to add a little something, you mentioned the Ipswich match on the last day of the season when we won 3-0, i remember at 0-0 Jordan Smith making a worldie save, the ball appeared to be looping up and over his head into the top corner, some how he managed to arch back and tip the ball onto the bar, i seriously believe had that goal have gone in we may well have lost that game and more than likely been relegated. We often look for defining moments, imo that most likely one of them. I also remember Britt having his penalty saved to deny him a hat trick, I’ll admit that is one of the few times in my life I’ve gone onto a pitch at the end of the match. The atmosphere was magical and I’m glad to say there was no trouble whatsoever.

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Losing to Stoke on that last day and Swansea’s 6 goal swing - that was a totally blessing in disguise

Just think, if it hadn’t of happened, we’d have never got Steve Cooper

23 years of hurt.

There was a lot of excitement once the club was promoted to the Premier League in 1998. However, when it was revealed that one of the team's top scorers, Kevin Campbell, had been sold, the elation rapidly turned to bewilderment. Especially after he went on loan to Everton, where he made an immediate impact, scoring nine goals in his first eight games. As a result, Campbell almost single-handedly saved Everton from relegation from the Premier League. In my opinion, this is a decision that has lost us millions in revenue and will continue to hurt us for many years given the gulf between the Championship and the Premier League that increases on a yearly basis. Its effects are still being felt today, and they will shape our strategy for next season.

Do we follow in the footsteps of Norwich or go all out and risk bankrupting the club if our decisions backfire?

When Pierre Von Hooiijdonk decided to go on strike for the first nine games of the new season, the situation became even more volatile. It's probable that if he had been there at the start of the season, we wouldn't have been relegated by a 10-point difference following the game against Aston Villa. To this day, PVH maintains he did the right thing!

The worst game of the season was an 8-1 loss at home to Manchester United. Other low points include Ron Atkinson's comedy of errors in the home game against Arsenal in January 1999, when he sat in the wrong dugout.

Since I was working outside of Nottingham and my time was being taken up by a small family, my enthusiasm for Forest began to diminish once they were relegated to Division 1.

I seem to recall that Platt was given 12 million pounds, which he squandered on mediocre signings. In 2000 and 2001, the Reds finished in 14th and 11th place, respectively.

The following year was a bit of a haze since I was now working in Liverpool and was distracted with my young family and career. However, I manage to keep up with what's going on by reading the BBC sports website and the original Ja606, as well as the NEP.

I vaguely recall that following the Platt fiasco, we had to sell a lot of our young talent, and we ended up 16th in 2002 after Hart took charge.

To be completely honest, the 2002/2003 season completely passed me by , and I didn't even realise we were in the play-off semi-finals until after the fact.
We were 3-1 up with 32 minutes left to play in the 2nd leg and lost 5-4 on aggregate to Warnock's Sheffield Utd at Bramall Lane, so I'm relieved I missed it.

After a 14-game losing streak, Hart was fired after a 1–0 home loss to Coventry City on February 7, 2004. After that, Joe Kinnear was brought in to take Hart's place. When Kinnear revitalised Forest, bringing out the best in important players like Michael Dawson and Andy Reid, the club's directors appeared to have made the right decision, as they climbed the table to a safe 14th place finish in 2004.

If you didn't think things could get any worse, consider this: we were relegated to Division 3 in 2005, the same year Liverpool won their third European Cup!!

For the first time in 54 years, we were demoted to the third division of our national league, becoming the first former European champions to do so.

The team's downward spiral continued in 2005–2006 when Gary Megson quit on February 16, 2006, with the club in 13th place in League One, just four points from relegation.

My interest in Forest was rekindled at this point, since the kids had grown up and I had discovered Radio Nottingham on the internet, which I could listen to from Liverpool on weekends. I remember that when we hired Ian McParland and Frank Barlow in February 2006, the team had a great run. They almost made the playoffs, but ended up in seventh place.

The 2007 and 2008 seasons were remembered for one club, Yeovil Town. I recall checking that we were leading 2–0 from the first leg before going into work to start my night shift, and with 10 minutes to go, we were 3–1 up in the second leg of the semi-final play-off final at the City Ground. I awoke in a stupor on Saturday evening after a long night shift and couldn't understand how we had lost 5-4 on aggregate. Nathan Tyson later said that they were planning for the final, including which hotels to reserve and which clothes to wear. To be honest, Yeovil Town wanted it more than we did and played better than we did, and it wasn't the first time we misjudged our opponents.

We didn't make the same mistake in 2008, and I remember listening to Robin Chippenfield's commentary on the radio when Julian Bennett made a hard tackle and scored a goal against Yeovil from the edge of the box to put us ahead on the last day of the season. Doncaster lost to Cheltenham, which meant that the Reds were automatically promoted.

Back in the Championship, we were fighting to avoid relegation by the time Christmas 2008 rolled around. After a 4-2 defeat at home to Doncaster Rovers on Boxing Day, Calderwood was fired and Billy Davies took over as manager. I recall the ruckus at the City Ground on April 11th, 2009, following Dexter Blackstock's 90th-minute winner over Bristol City, which lifted us out of the relegation zone. But we had to beat Southampton on the last day of the season, May 9, in order to stay in the Championship.

After a decade away from the City, now that I was back in the East Midlands and performing missionary work down the A52, I was able to attend home matches on a regular basis, and I had some great days out with the Kids for a Quid.

Following that, we lost two play-off semi-finals in a row: in 2010 we were defeated by Blackpool, who we had underestimated, and in 2011, Swansea proved to be the superior team.

Instead of handing Billy Davies a third season as manager, the club replaced him with Steve McLaren, who was a complete misfit for the team.
After the humiliating 3-1 loss to Birmingham City on October 6, 2011, he did the right thing and resigned, with the club just above the relegation zone.

We had a new manager bounce after Stevie Cotteril joined the team before normal service resumed. The 7-3 victory over Leeds United on March 20, 2012, was the most memorable moment of the season.

Fawaz took over the club in the summer of 2012 and treated it as if it were his personal toy, making some of the most ridiculous decisions at the club, including rumours of tampering with team selection on match days.

We just had one issue with SOD after he was hired in the summer of 2012: we couldn't understand a word he said in the post-match interview. In any case, he seemed like a good fit for the club.

Fawaz fired Sean O'Driscoll on Boxing Day in 2012, despite our team's 4-2 victory over Leeds and the fact that we were only one point short of the playoff spot. The following manager, Alex McLeash, turned out to be an even bigger misfit than Steve McLaren. After Billy's return to the City Ground, the club went on a six-game winning streak before running out of steam in April of 2013.
Even a win against relegation-threatened Barnsley may have made a difference. After losing to Leicester on May 4, 2013, we were unable to qualify for the playoffs, despite the fact that it appeared for a moment that we might be able to sneak into the playoffs.
There are times when I wonder if we would have made the playoffs this year if SOD hadn't been fired and the accompanying mayhem hadn't ensued, or if Alex McLeash had just won more than one of the seven games he was in charge of.

Vengeance was best served cold in the last season of Davies's drama, which was loaded with tension and an obsession with getting back at those who had wronged him in the past.
After the Reds' away win against Huddersfield by a score of 3-0 on February 11, 2014, they had gone 16 games without defeat in either the League or the Cup. On the other hand, they were never able to play the football they played with effortless fluidity in the 2009-2010 season.

Following a winless run of eight straight matches, manager Davies was fired after Nottingham Forest's 5-0 loss against Derby on March 22, 2014, with the side two points outside of the playoff spots. A total of six first-choice players, including Reid and Cohen, were sidelined by injury, and the remaining senior squad members never stepped up. Forest would have finished the season on 74 points with a place in the play-offs had they not conceded so many late goals.

In the summer of 2014,Fawas replaced interim manager Gary Brazil with manager Stuart Pearce. This was characteristic of Fawas, who constantly sought to endear himself to his supporters. I thought that Mr. Pearce could use an experienced old head to work alongside him.

After a fantastic start to the season, Britt Assombalonga and Michail Antonio powered Nottingham Forest to the top of the table.

However, with important players injured, Forest's defensive weaknesses were exploited by opponents, giving the appearance that the team had no other tactic but to rely on the speed and strength of its strikers.
A seven-match winless run brought issues to a head in the January 17, 2015, fixture against Derby at Pride Park. Stuart Pearce was temporarily redeemed by Ben Osborne's winning goal in the 91st minute.
Following a home loss to Milwall in a match we should have won, he was sacked.

Dougie Freeman was hired on 1/2/2015. Freeman stressed the significance of a five-year strategy regardless of who was manager. Freeman's organisation helped the team's defence and midfield. After his hiring, the Reds lost only one match in 10 games. However, Britt Assomblonga was injured in a 3–0 win over Wigan on the 11th of February 2015. Matt Fryer's injury after the 2-1 loss to Charlton in March 2015 compounded this. After losing 8 straight, Forest finished 14th.

Nottingham Forest began the 2015-16 season with injuries to Assomblonga and Matt Fryer and an inability to sign players due to the club's financial situation. The transfer of Michail Antonio to West Ham on the 1st of September 2015 for 7 million pounds left fans wondering how the goals would come. The most memorable game of the season was the one-nil victory over Derby at the City Ground on November 6th, which ended an eight-match winless streak. A 12-match unbeaten streak in the winter and spring likely saved the club from relegation. The two key strikers were injured, and I wondered how many of the seven draws they could have won with them.
After losing five of six games, Freeman was sacked on March 13th, 2016 following a telephone conversation with Fawas.

No doubt, a worried Fawas called Freeman, hoping to be reassured that things would improve, but the forlorn Scot probably explained that he was doing his best given the circumstances.

I saw "I Believe in Miracles," an evening with the Miracle Men, at the Royal Concert Hall in Nottingham on April 22, 2016.

At the end of the night, while the Miracle Men were still on stage, the song "We Got the Whole World in Our Hands" was played. At that moment, I was taken back decades and thought about the goals that John Robertson and Trevor Frances scored during our European victories.

Before driving home on the A5-2, I went to Perri Rooster on Angel Row and bought a gourmet burger for myself. As I enjoyed the burger, I called my brother and told him that it doesn't get any better than this.

Things did not improve under Paul Williams, who took over as the team's interim coach until the end of the season, in which Forest ended in 16th place.

With Philip Montanier at the helm for the 2016 season, it appeared that we had thrown caution to the wind and would attack and attack no matter what. The approach contrasted sharply with Dougie Freeman's measured and cautious approach, which was cited as one of the reasons for his dismissal. However, you should be careful about what you wish for. It was a season remembered for all the wrong reasons, including the signing of Lord Bendtner. Hildeberto Pereira struck me as a promising young player who could have been nurtured into a first-class player but for his fiery attitude. His assist to Brit Assomblonga in the season-opening 4-3 victory over Burton and his goal in the 3-1 victory over Birmingham on October 14, 2016 were two of my favourite moments. Another player who deserves special mention is Apostolos Vellios, who I felt deserved more playing time. Montanier was fired on January 14, 2017, following a goalless draw at Birmingham, demonstrating the failure of this strategy. At the time, the club was in 20th place, three points above the relegation zone.

Montanier was replaced by Mark Warburton, whom I thought was an excellent choice given his data-driven approach at Brentford. I didn't think we were ready for his "play-from-the-back approach" just yet. One of his most memorable matches as manager was against Derby on March 18th, 2017. I checked the Forest-Derby score whilst on vacation in Iran, and we were losing 2–1, and I assumed the game had ended at 92 minutes. After a few minutes, I checked my phone again, and the score had changed to 2–2 thanks to a Daniel Pinillos header. I was perplexed, and I'm still convinced to this day that when I checked the score on the BBC sports website, it said FT with us losing 2-1. The significance of the goal and point was not fully realised until the final day of the season.

On May 7, the last day of the season, fans started chanting "Psycho." I was seated with my sons in the Peter Taylor stand and listening to Radio Nottingham through my headphones. I looked up to see Stuart Pearce take his seat in the commentary box. The news that Blackburn were winning 2-0 against Brentford with 16 minutes played in the first half created a palpable sense of tension around the ground. As things stood, the Reds were down. However, goals from Britt A and Chris Cohen led Forest to a 3-1 victory and kept us up on goal differences. I stormed the field with my sons and the rest of the fans, celebrating as if we'd been promoted to the Premier League. The day marked the beginning of the end of the Fawas era, as the club was purchased in May of 2017 by Evangelos Marinakis. After five seasons as owner, Fawas, who vowed to return us to the Premiership, nearly relegated us to the First Division, with each season getting progressively worse.

After Apotolos Vellios' scoring heroics in the summer pre-season, I had high hopes that he would be given a shot in the starting lineup after Britt was sold for £15 million, but that didn't happen when the new season started in 2017-2018.

The club signed some new players, such as Barry Mckay and Kieran Dowell, with the hope that, given time, they, together with a host of young new signings, would be moulded to play the attractive foolball that Brentford is known for. Despite the fact that Darly Murphy scored a few goals in his first few appearances after being signed, I did not feel he was the answer up front.

The early part of the season showed some signs of promise with five victories in six games, and we did move up the table to the 14th spot, but by the time that Warburton was fired on the 31st of December 2017, we had lost the joint-second greatest number of games in the league.

I thought that the team was defensively poor, light in midfield, and without a recognisable striker. The match against Brentford on August 12, 2017, in which we won 4-3 and Bouchalakis scored a brace, was easily the most exciting and entertaining match of the first half of the season.

Eric Lijach's world-beating volley and the celebrations that followed made the 4-2 FA Cup third-round win over Arsenal one of the most memorable games of 2018.
Gary Brazil, the interim manager, was replaced on January 8, 2018 by Aitor Karanka. Karanka came in with the expectation of being given at least a two-or three-year window to get the club promoted, similar to his time at Middlesborough. We made some good signings in January including Joe Lolley, Ben Watson, Adlène Guedioura, and Jack Colback, and Tobias Figueredo and Lee Tomlin came on loan.
I left for greener pastures in March 2018, with an exciting opportunity to work in Doha and possibly watch the World Cup in 2022. I discovered i-follow Nottingham Forest, which allowed me to pay a monthly subscription fee and watch the majority of the Reds' weekend home and away games.
The performances and goals of Joe Lolley and Matty Cash at QPR, Birmingham, and Ipwich Town made the rest of the season memorable. I thought we had the foundation for a good team, but we needed a decent striker and a creative midfielder to round out the squad. With 53 points, Forest finished the season in 17th place.

Following the summer transfer window, which saw the signings of Lewis Grabban and Joao Carvalho for a club record fee of £13 million, expectations for the 2018/19 season were high.

On paper, the start to the 2018-19 season looked promising, with only three losses in 23 games. However, 10 of them were draws, so it's not surprising that one of the most memorable matches was a 5-5 draw against Villa on November 28th, 2018, which felt like a victory. We got off to a flying start, leading 2-0 after just six minutes. However, with Villa leading 5-4 with 15 minutes remaining against 10 men, it appeared that we would lose until Lewis Grabban scored in the 82nd minute. The Boxing Day match against Norwich, on the other hand, felt like a defeat, especially after we were 3-0 up only to draw after Norwich scored two stoppage time goals. There were rumours that Aitor would resign after this game, but he unexpectedly resigned on January 11, 2019, following a 4-2 victory over Leeds on New Year's Day, leaving Forest in seventh place. The circumstances surrounding his resignation have always perplexed me. However, I recently read that the goalposts had been moved and that the executive team expected the Reds to compete for the automatics rather than the playoffs. During his tenure, another painful memory was a 3-2 League Cup loss to Burton. I truly believed we would advance to the fifth round, but we once again underestimated our opponents and paid the price.

Martin O'Neil and Roy Keane had a five-month stint from January 15th to June 28th, 2019, with O'Neil being fired and replaced by Sabri Labouchi after rumours of him losing the dressing room due to his old school training methods.Despite the fact that the City Ground was packed and buzzing during his tenure, the football never lived up to expectations, fueling the belief that he was decades too late for the job. In my opinion, if he truly had a red heart, he would have followed Frank Clarke in December 1996 or Dave Bassett in January 1999. While MON was responsive to fans' requests to change the tactical formation when they were losing, it did not change the outcome. Both Sabri and Hughton would stick to the "4231" formation, with fans yelling "442" when the correct answer was "3421," as we would later learn.

I had never heard of Sabri Lamouchi (SL) before he joined the Reds on June 28, 2019. I initially assumed it was a typical Nottingham Forest manoeuvre that would eventually backfire on us, and I was still reeling from the MON debacle. I had romanticised the idea of him returning us to the promised land.
I was concerned about Manchester City loan goalkeeper Arijanet Muric after the first game against West Bromwich Albion on August 3rd, 2019.However, Sabri steadily won over the fans, especially after two defeats in 13 games, which included victories over Derby, Fulham, Brentford, Swansea, and Stoke. We would normally lose to some of these teams because they were our bogey teams. His strategy was 4-2-3-1. We defended from a deep position, didn't press very often, and tried to keep as many players as possible behind the ball.In most games, the opposition appears to have more possession of the ball and more chances to score, whereas Forest appears to have fewer but far more effective counterattacks. The technique worked well when the club was playing away from home against better opposition, but when the team was playing at home and the opposition did not attack, the result was frequently a stalemate. The team had a strong spine with Matty Cash at right back, Ben Watson and De Silva in midfield, and Grabban up front, and they looked a lot more assured when Bruce Samba replaced Arijanet Muric in goal on his League debut in the 2–1 victory over Fulham on the 24th of August 2019. When Sam Sow was on the field, we rarely lost, and he added a lot of defensive midfield steel. Despite this, he was prone to injuries.

Even though the Reds had one of their worst games of the season against Sheffield Wednesday at home, where they fell behind 4-0 in the first half, luck had been on their side for most of the season.
But things began to go wrong after the Charlton game, which we lost 1-0 as a result of injuries and a poor January transfer window. In the final game before the season was suspended due to the COVID pandemic, Millwall played us off the park on March the 6th, a convincing 3-0 home defeat. I was expecting the Reds to return revitalised and full of vigour following the 15-week gap between the Milwall game and the 1-1 draw away to Sheffield Wednesday on June 20th, 2020.

Forest moved up to fourth place in the table after defeating Bristol City 1-0 thanks to a stunning Tiago Silva goal, following our last victory of the season on the 1st of July 2020. They seemed to be on target to get promoted automatically, and their position in the playoffs was never in question.

The game against Derby on July 4th was the first sign that providence, fine margins, and swing factors were conspiring against us. Joe Lolley's early long-range strike appeared to be enough to end the game and propel the Reds to third place in the Championship with 70 points, just four points behind second place with 74. Derby were reduced to ten men on 94 minutes after Waghorn was sent off, but Chris Martin's 97th-minute strike earned them a point. How important those two dropped points were would come more and more signficant after this game.

Nobody could have predicted how the season would end when Forest drew against Swansea on July 15, 2020. Forest were in fifth position with 70 points, while Swansea were in eighth with 64 points and a seven-goal difference. However, warning bells began to ring during the away game against Barnsley on July 19, 2020. We couldn't break them down, and we hardly had a shot on target, whereas they had over 20. My heart was in my mouth when Worral saved the line, but when they scored in the 93rd minute, I began to contemplate the impossible.

Forest entered the final game of the season in fifth place with 70 points and a goal differential of five points behind Swansea. We only need one point to secure a playoff spot, and we'd need a six-goal swing in Swansea's favour to miss out on the play-offs.
When it comes to maths, I'm still stumped. All I know is that we were still in with 20 minutes to go before imploding, and Stevie Cooper's Swansea scored in the 91st minute to knock us out of the play-off spots. I remember Lamouchi's tears and the teammates' defeated expressions, especially Joe Lolley's.
During the pandemic's darkest days, when I felt alone and alienated and didn't know when I'd see my family again or if I'd die from the virus like close friends, our playoff spot was meant to be a light that would push the clouds away and give us something to look forward to in the future.
Instead the anguish I felt after we lost was as severe as anything I'd ever felt before. Relegation in 1993, 1999, and 2005, losing the play off semi finals in 2003 , 2007 , 2010 and 2011 as well as Brian Clough's retirement in 1993, losing the FA Cup final in 1991, and a loss to Anderlect in 1984, were all unpleasant memories.
Reflecting back who would have thought that Swansea manager Steve Cooper would manager Forest in the future and perhaps the experience of loss by both parties would make them more determined to succeed in the future.

Matty Cash was transferred to Aston Villa for a fee of £16 million during the summer of 2020. However, with the departures of Ben Watson and Tiago Silver, it appeared that key players who formed the team's spine were leaving. Also, with 23 players arriving, possibly to make up for the January transfer window, we had enough players for an A and B team. However, in my opinion, we should have just kept the team's spine intact and focused on quality rather than quantity. We losted the first four games of the season. Was it a hangover from the Stoke City defeat, or had Sabri not figured out his best team with so many key players gone? They played as individuals rather than as a team. and didn't seem to care until we fell behind by a goal. Sabri was fired after his team went 11 games without a win, culminating in a 2-1 home loss to Bristol City on October 3, 2020. Freeman scored a screamer in that game, and Taylor blew a simple chance.

Chris Hughton was appointed on October 6, 2020, and given his background, there was strong consensus that he was the right man for the job at the time. What happened next was a painful and torturous ordeal. Forest played as if one hand were tied behind their backs and the brakes were applied. Each match felt like a waiting game for the team to be transformed into a fluid counterattacking unit, but the miracle never arrived. Chris Houghton probably imagined himself to be some grand master at work playing chess, but the reality was that the football was at times unbearably unbearable to watch. The two most memorable games were against QPR on April 5, when Garner scored a free kick wonder goal in a 3-1 home win, and at Wycombe Wanderers, where Glenn Murray scored twice in a 3-0 win that gave us false hope that he still had it in him when he joined on loan until the end of the season. With 52 points, we finished the season in 17th place.

So it's not surprising that Houghton was fired after losing six of the first seven games of the season and starting the season with the worst start since 1913 at the bottom of the league with one point. Hughton's reign ended in the 72nd minute, when Howarth's miskick allowed Hernández to score in a 2–0 home loss. John Percy broke the news first on Twitter, and after listening to Hughton's post-match interview on Radio Nottingham, it was clear the news had not reached him.

Meanwhile...on the Derby board...they are talking about cricket!

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On the 18th of September, Steven Reid was in charge of the away game against Huddersfield, and we played like a team that had been transformed since the introduction of the new 3-4-2-1 formation, winning 0-2.
Who could have predicted that Huddersfield would be our play-off final opponents and that 8 of the 11 Forest players would compete in the final, emphasising the importance of Steven Reid's contribution to the promotion challenge?
However, given his relationship with Chris Hughton, one has to wonder how much advice the former Forest manager took from his assistant.

Following this Steve Cooper was appointed and in contrast to the previous appointment there was incremental improvement with successive matches and a willingness to change things around when things were not working out.

Following our impressive run of form, which included Lyle Taylor's best contribution in a red shirt, scoring goals in 91 and 92 minutes to beat Bristol City 2-1 on October 19, and picking up 21 out of 27 points since the change in management on November 14, I posted an article about our playoff chances. At that time, we were in 13th position but only 4 points off the playoffs. I wrote, "Looking at the fixture list, apart from the possible WBA and Bournemouth games in Feb next year, I think Forest could potentially go on a decent run over the next few months." I did not think the championship was particularly strong this year, and Forest were in with a good shout. Fulham and Bournemouth are the top two, but third place is up for grabs. I was met with comments like "I can't see myself or you havin a tin bath!"

However, with the exception of a few hiccups around the Christmas period, our good form continued, and by the time the January transfer window opened, we had made some excellent additions, including Kenian Davies, and brought in Sam Sturridge. So much so that there was a lot of disappointment when the match against Bournemouth was called off four hours before kickoff on February 18th. Some speculated that rescheduling the game was done in Bournmouth's best interests, given the injuries to key players such as Lerma and Moore.

Through March and April, Forest went on an amazing run, collecting 27 points out of a possible 30, with the loss against Luton (boy do I not like Luton) our only defeat. Everyone could feel that there was something in the air.This was different compared to the 2009/2010 and 2010/2011 seasons, when we ran out of steam around March or April, and more like our promotion seasons of 1993/1994 and 1997/1998.

Following the 5-1 win over Swansea, Forest had 79 points, just three points behind Bournemouth in second place. As a result, fans, including myself, were still mourning the defeat to Luton. If we had won, our points total would have been equaled , and we would have been ahead of them in goal difference. Given our start to the season, even thinking about an automatic promotion spot was the stuff of fantasy. I believe we outplayed Bournemouth in the first half, but their class showed in the second, and it was inevitable that Keifer Moore, who was injured for the postponed match, would score the winner. Perhaps the loss to Bournemouth and missing out on the possibility of automatic promotion added a little extra steel and motivation for the players heading into the playoffs.

I wasn't too disappointed when our season-ending game against Hull ended in a 1-1 draw because it meant we wouldn't have to play Luton (have I mentioned how much I despise Luton?).
We would travel to Sheffield United on May 14, 2022, and welcome them to the City Ground on May 17, 2022. On May 17, my oldest son turned 21, and I was able to celebrate in person for the first time in three years. I knew I was a Forest fan and that our lives were supposed to be miserable, but I didn't think I'd have to suffer the agony of defeat on such a happy day, so I was quietly confident.
A 4 or 5-goal win should have been a foregone conclusion after the first leg. But, being Forest, we conceded in the 92nd minute to ensure that the second leg would be filled with drama.
On the 21st, I was entertaining my family, so I had to flit between rooms and apologise for my absence because I had to watch the Forest game, but everything was going as planned as Brennan Johnson's goal put us up 3-1 in the 19th minute. Despite the fact that we did not perform as well as we did in the first game, I never doubted that we would win. But when MGW scored in the 47th minute, the tension rose, and when Sheffield United scored again with 15 minutes left, I waited with bated breath for the goal that would put an end to my dreams.
With the stakes rising, Forest remained composed and did not implode as it had in previous high-stakes games. The third Sheffield United goal, however, meant that the game would go to extra time. As extra time approached, I mentally prepared myself for defeat by telling myself that if we win the championship next season, we will be able to stay in the Premiership in the long run. As in previous seasons, we waited and waited for the goal that would have put an end to our dreams, but it never seemed likely. However, as the minutes ticked away, I screamed at the television, begging Forest to score, screaming that if the game went to the drama of the penalty shootout, I would die of a heart attack. In extra time, I believe we were the superior team, but we were unable to score.
As the penalty shootout began, my eldest child noticed Samba preoccupied with his water bottle. The significance of this would be revealed the following day. The possibility of realising the dream grew with each successive save and Sheffield United's inability to score. To make up for the loss in July 2020, I wanted Lolley to convert his penalty, but he missed, and our hero Samba saved three penalties to get us to the championship final.
The rush of endorphins, dopamine, and serotonin that followed the penalty shootout melted away 23 years of pain. It felt like we had been promoted to the Premier League. The next day, a photo of Brice's water bottle went viral on Twitter, revealing the reason for his obsession with his water bottle. It was brilliant, in my opinion.
The week between the final and the last game was a blur because I was on cloud nine. I returned to Doha on the 28th, and when I arrived, I was down for an evening shift. I asked a colleague to swap, and he said he'd think about it. I explained that this was the most important football game for NFFC in 23 years, and there was nothing to think about!!
Following the heroics of the penalty shootout, the final on May 29th, 2022, was a bit of an anti-climax. I didn't get the feeling that we were going to lose, nor did I feel threatened or nervous by the Huddersfield team. They deserved at least one of the penalty shouts, in my opinion. But, hey, who cares?
As is often the case, the goal was a combination of luck and genius, and as the game approached full time, there was the realisation that we had finally made it back to the promised land after 23 years of heartbreak.
When I called my sons in the UK, I could tell they were overjoyed. They had been Reds fans for over a decade and had only known heartbreak and disappointment, so this was their first taste of true success as Reds fans. As a reminder of how their Forest journey began, I sent a photo of the first match I took them to, a 4-3 home defeat against Reading in April 2011.
So, looking back over the last 23 years, it has been a long, difficult journey filled with setbacks and pain, but regardless of what happens next, I will always cherish the 2021/2022 season and our return to the Promised Land, particularly the 21st of May 2022.
Steve Cooper, we salute you. You and your band of merry men will go down in Nottingham Forest folklore for what you accomplished.
We salute you, squad of 2021/2022, and wish you the best of luck in your future endeavours.

Brice Samba
Ethan Howe
Jordan Smith
Djed Spence
Tobias Figueiredo
Joe Worrall
Loïc Mbe Soh
Gaëtan Bong
Richie Laryea
Max Lowe
Jonathan Panzo
Scott Mckena
Steve Cook
Jack Colback
Philip Zinckernagel
Cafu
Braian Ojeda
Ryan Yates
James Garner
Lewis Grabban
Keinan Davis
Sam Surridge
Alex Mighten
Xande Silva
Brennan Johnson
Joe Lolley

Come on, you reds.