Brian Clough

Have had a week off, as a mark of respect for the great Brian Clough, whose death seems to have released a great outpouring of emotion in Nottingham and Derby, and an entirely merited degree of respect from the rest of the football world, with everyone paying tribute to a true great - in an era when this word is much overused, and mediocrity is king.

It's difficult to know what to say that hasn't already been said this week, and it's hard to believe that only a few years ago he was still on the touchline shouting at his last Forest team as they went down, sinking without trace, drowning not waving.

I was at the match on Sunday, and it was a powerfully moving testament to the affection, respect and love which the Forest fans have for Brian Clough, and for what he gave them and the city twenty years ago. After the parade of the trophies he won, and the tribute from past players, there were many people around me in tears when My Way crooned out of the speakers, just before kick off.

I particularly liked the banner held by some Leeds fans who had travelled down for the League Cup tie against Rotherham in midweek, which said - Our loss - again.

No sleep till Stoke

Having watched Stoke, all in black, try to kick Forest out of a game at the City Ground last season, with a distinct lack of skill, and a noticeable amount of physical presence, I was greatly amused by their rise to the summit of The Championship (as we're calling it this week) albeit for a limited period.

Sadly they were apparently unable to deploy their sophisticated attacking approach today, in spite of Forest being without any first choice defenders at all, as the Reds injury crisis becomes an epidemic, or even an emergency, or possibly something worse. Note from reports that most of the Stoke goal attempts were headers - bit of a giveaway that, and that Forest had their normal weekly goal disallowed.

As Joe Kinnear said after the match: "Our back four were all home-grown kids out of the academy and they did exceptionally well." Intriguingly Andy Reid not only didn't start, but didn't even travel, so not sure what's going on there - belated retribution for the transfer request presumably.

No Lemons In The Valleys

Today some important news emerged from the Welsh Valleys:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_east/3658970.stm

North Dakota

As winter approaches in North Dakota (the least visited state in the USA) a very handy device is to be found at - http://www.in-forum.com/weather/index.cfm?page=windchill - which enables you to calculate the windchill factor at any given temperature-wind speed combination. It's very useful, and allows you to avoid getting frost bite.

Interestingly, the State of North Dakota contains within it's boundaries, the exact geographical centre of the North American continent, marked by a garden, as well as the largest buffalo statue in the world on a hill overlooking one of the state highways, and a Coen brothers film named after one of its principal cities - Fargo.

Beautiful as well as desolate, the Great Plains state was home to millions of buffalo in the hey day of the great beast, and also the location of the book Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee - about a massacre of horrific proportions, when native americans were wiped out by US soldiers - still busy in Iraq of course, helping nations achieve democracy the American way.

State Capital, Bismarck houses one of the finest collections in the world, of agricultural equipment through the ages, in its fine looking Museum of Agriculture and Farming.

It's goals that count

Good job Cardiff & Rotherham both seem equally incapable of getting more than zero points at the moment, and I'm somewhat concerned that a pattern is developing here... it's that thing about scoring more goals than the other team...

The ForestBlog management team will be in Nottingham, taking in the Forest game against West Ham on September 26th, as it coincides with my birthday, and I had hoped to enjoy a feast of attacking football, without the notion of a season of misery and strife in the relegation places, popping into my head. As it is I'm slightly concerned that we may still be looking for a win when the 26th rolls around...the Championship may well be a triumph of style over content, and marketing over football, but I still want Forest to be in it come next season.

Busy weekend & cinq points

The last few days have been very busy for all associated with Forestblog, with trips to Cardiff and London, and an interesting afternoon as an unbiased neutral at the Fulham - Arsenal game, courtesy of tickets provided by familial contacts. Poor old Fulham eh? Arsenal were of course both lucky and brilliant in places, and superb in sufficient passages of play to win easily in the end.

Fulham fans as an entity, definately need analysis, or counselling, as they suffer from a complex combination of rose-tinted spectacles, lack of objectivity, and deep-seated envy, laced with loathing, where Chelsea and Arsenal are concerned. Having derbies all the time must really put them through the wringer, emotionally.

As for Forest, Cardiff seem particularly crappy at the moment, and, newly Earnshaw-less would seem to have been ideal opposition to get that first win against - plus which we could have put a nice little gap between ourselves and the bottom three places; it's difficult to claim we're mid-table when we are third from the bottom. But that's football, it's all about putting the ball in the net. Brian.

And so, Wearside on a wet Tuesday night is a less than enticing prospect, but Forest need to win a match soon, so it's as good a place as any to start.

It's all go - apart from the bits that are coming

Over the last few years, as Forest have mutated from a yo yo club, into just another First Division side with ideas above their station (hopefully one on the up line sooner rather than later, with a destination of Premiership Central) it's not often one has been able to say something like, it's all happening transfer-wise this week, but:

A selection of headlines:

Forest eye John deal
Forest settle with Dutch striker
Forest 'join Gregan chase'
Forest snub Bart-Williams

OK so we're not actually buying Pierre back, and I don't fully understand how even he can have the gall to have persisted with his demand for a loyalty bonus, but that's football.

And much as I used to like The Bartman, ( and I still have a soundfile of him scoring the winning goal in a promotion season, several years back) it's nice to be able to snub people for a change, rather than having the world and his wife blow us out. As it were.

Can't wait for Forest to actually win a match; three point is quite a lot more than none, and percentage wise would increase our current tally by at least, well nearl 100%, roughly.

Banana News

Conceptual artist Doug Fishbone, fresh from winning the Beck's Futures award for Film & Video this year, and following on from his 20,000 Bananas, in Brooklyn, New York, in October 2002, is planning a banana project in Trafalgar Square early next month. The tentative date is October 5th

http://www.art-themagazine.com/pages/newyork3.htm

See also: http://www.wizya.net/em/doug2001.htm

More Banana news:

http://michnews.com/artman/publish/article_4311.shtml

Worth checking out, this one ... only in America

Also: 20,000 bananas under the sea: http://members.aol.com/bumingler/set2/sea.html

Jesus Saves ...And St. John puts in the rebound

Came across this today on a blog from the US of A, our friends over the water:

Unbelievable! This hurricane is HUGE! Most of the state of Florida is being pounded by this monsterous storm, which came ashore last night .. My prayers are that the LORD will calm this storm!

Must be divine intervention - there is a god then - for Jeb Bush fixing the US Elections in Florida last time around.

Russian Ministries of Wheaton, Illinois states that among the hostages in the Beslan, Russia massacre, were several children who had just been to a Christian summer camp and had accepted Jesus into their lives. Also, the local evangelical pastors had their children present in that school, and they were amongst the hostages. No word yet on the status of these children...

So there you go - special status for Jesus-types - I don't think so - still they'll have gone to heaven at least, so that's all right then.

The Revolution Starts ...Now

I realise that Steve Earle is not strictly Forest-related, but he does have a fine lookin' garden shed, he eats a lot of bananas on tour, now he 's healthy, and he keeps pet fish (two piranhas, called Ronnie and George). Not all of this is true.

Anyway, his new album is out - The Revolution Starts ... Now, and a fine body of work it is too, perfectly timed for the upcoming US elections and the ongoing misguided expansion of the American Empire by that idiot George Bush.

And how are we supposed to take seriously a country which elects as Governor of California, the sixth or seventh largest economy in the world, a guy who made his name running around in crap films blowing people away, and mumbling in some sort of central european-american accent. At least Tony Blair speaks proper. Even if we now hate his lies and duplicity, and loath the New Labour Project.

I'm guessing that if Idiot Bush gets in again, and if we're all still here by 2008, then Hilary Clinton might be up against Arnie for the Presidency, in 2008. Now that would be funny!

Andy Reid Haikus

here are a couple
to start the round ball rolling
all downhill from here

andy reid may go
to spurs or even charlton
but forest go on

fatalistic fans
see soaring andy reid goal
vast future ahead

Andy Reid

Watching the Ireland game on Saturday, it was interesting to hear the tone of the commentator, after Andy Reid's rather wonderful goal - it was all, well he should be plying his trade in the Premiership, and he's in limbo till January, and it's all very unfortunate, etc. as if Forest were somehow at fault, and should have made sure they sold him to Spurs or whoever, before the transfer window closed.

All the Premiership teams apparently after Andy Reid, seem to have squads stuffed with midfield players, whereas Forest are struggling to put out a team of players over 20 years old at the moment. In fact his trade is as a Forest player, and his job is to ply it in The Championship, and inspire the team into the playoff places, at least, and there is life outside the Premiership. Phew, nearly a rant.

Austria - rewriting history

Apparently Arnie, the Governer of California (!) claimed in his speech to the Republican Convention in New York this week that he remembered seeing Russion tanks in Austria, as a kid, and that Austria had been a socialist country back then - yeah right!

VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- Historians criticized Arnold Schwarzenegger for telling the Republican National Convention that he left a "socialist" country when he moved away in 1968, noting that Austria had conservative leaders during the entire time he lived there. Some also were doubtful about Schwarzenegger's remark that he saw Soviet tanks as a child, since he lived in an Austrian region occupied by British troops after World War II.

Truth the first casualty of war eh? And politics apparently, if that's what you can call the goings on in America - I thought I'd seen everything when Reagan became president, but now Arnie is presumably headed in the same direction, a few years down the line. Still at least Arnie is taller than Ronnie was, even if they share a similar brain size.

Ah yes, and then there is the little matter of a football match in Austria, which in the light of the goings on in Russia this week, seems somewhat meaningless.

Still, we can be confident of a similarly sophisticated tactical approach from Sven, to that deployed in Euro 2004, and I'm guessing a scrappy 2-1 win.

And apparently 52% of men list messing around in sheds as their top form of leisure activity.

Shed Your Inhibitions

Currently running on the Discovery Home & Leisure channel is an excellent little vignette of a series, called Shed Of The Year 2004, and it's worth a look. I've been casting my expert eye over the finalists, and I'm liking the look of the one on top of a cliff in Cornwall or possibly the so-called Classic shed. Tonight you can also view the Extreme Shed, and the Eco Shed, and vote for your favourites via the red button.

http://www.homeandleisure.co.uk/sheds/

Interestingly, and not a lot of people know this, the first ever Probation Office in Dudley in the Black Country was in a shed at the bottom of Frank Jones' garden in the town.

Friday on my mind

So, a perfect autumn morning, blue skies, red-gold leaves starting to fall on top of ones that already fell in August, kids back to school, day off, its only natural that ones thoughts should settle on ... what .. well, Paul Gerrard's groin of course, which apparently is only tweaked, and he should be back shortly, which is good, since Roche doesn't have a very good goals per game average at the moment, and the other keeper is only about 17 & got sent off in a reserve team match this week.

Since Forest Blog HQ is in South Wales, near Cardiff, not far from the M4 corridor, round a corner and in a room next door to the vending machine, I have more than a passing interest in the upcoming World Cup Qualifiers, which pit England against Wales. Even though Sir Clive and Rupert Lowe are clearly bonkers, and must have had one or two too many G & T's one night, nevertheless, one can't help thinking that Mark Hughes would probably do a better job with the Welsh rugby team than whichever top name they've got installed at the moment.

It's hard not to feel that the Welsh team may well have peaked half way thru the Euro 2004 qualifiers, and may struggle to recapture whatever it was they had when they were on that particular roll. We'll see.

And another thing ...

And don't get me started on the welsh language issue. Look you.

And The Libertines new record is fab, and not at all a record of the weak. And now we know What Became Of The Likely Lads ...

Penalties

Still mulling over the Plymouth match, the penalty in particular, and given the Navy influence, I suppose we shouldn't be overly surprised at how good Plymouth are at diving. And green & black - is that a good look? I think they should be looking at changing to a dark blue.