5 Things the New Regime Could Do to Get Fans Behind Them

WIth the new regime about to possibly take over, here we have put together 5 things that any new regime could do to get the fans behind them.

1. Sack Mark Arthur
Which would be largely a token gesture, as I am sure any new regime would replace him anyway, but he is largely vilified by fans and would certainly get quite a number on side immediately.

2. Sign Adlene Guedioura
A cult legend already at Forest the signing of a player largely attributed with saving our bacon last season would certainly send a message to fans and other clubs of our intentions, whilst pleasing us with a player we all love.


3. Sign a left back
It’s what we have been crying out for year for. And never as happened. Solving this problem would immedately show good intentions and also the knowledge to know where a vacuum in the team needs filling

4. At least look into either redeveloping City Ground or moving.
There are parts of the stadium that desperately need some touching up. The Main Stand is a shed and the Brian Clough stand is starting to age badly. Putting some investment into the ground would make the City Ground a better place, or if we do need to leave shows planning for the future and that you aren’t here for the short haul.

5. Retain a Forest Connections
Whether that is keeping Frank Clark on board, or appointing a new manager with club connections (Billy Davies?) We need to show this isn’t just Money Bags FC from anywhere. Keep this clubs identity at heart. It could even involve a huge marquee signing of an ex player, for which I mean Jermaine Jenas.



Talk About this and have your say on the forum clicking here

The Power and the Shame of Twitter

Twitter has become an invaluable tool for communicating football news in a way that Facebook or even texts never could. The way we can swap ideas or news via this medium to people we may not know but share a common interest isn’t exactly new but the manner we use it now is amazingly useful. I have used it more than enough times to form the beginning kernel of an idea for an article.

In a way that forums were and still are, this instant communication has meant you also come into contact with a greater variety of people, many are fine, and we simply just want to communicate about Forest. Some are idiots, who are either hell-bent on ruining it, or are that ignorant and obnoxious they don’t realise they are doing it.

For 10 years we have had a forum on the Soccer 24-7 page, fairly constantly active in that time, it has been one of the more well used of the club forums on the site. I’d say that there is a strong correlation between Twitters expansion and the golden age of forums passing. People just want that instant gratification now and not wait for another poster to comment.

This is of course progress and cannot be sniffed at. It is merely the way the world is going. However, like the forum had its trolls, so now to does Twitter. I always regarded it as being a higher brow version of Facebook. I think everyone has seen that most discussion on Facebook quickly descends into a slanging match. Unfortunately as things get more popular those same people have found Twitter.

The huge added advantage of Twitter is the presence of journalists and players, and the ability to directly communicate with them. This is a wonderful way of having contact with your customers, your fans, and your people. In theory, in a wonderful world this works beautifully.

However as I said the dark underbelly of attention seeking idiots or the plan obnoxious are out in force like never before. It started becoming more and more apparent in late 2010ish. When Forest fans complaining about lack of communication saw the chairman Nigel Doughty join Twitter. What better way could there be to get answers on matters from the horse’s mouth so to speak. He could share with us his frustrations his happiness, what he was thinking. Wonderful. But then there are those who see this is as a way to hurl insults or abuse in a way no one with any kind of self respect would do face to face, so why is it behind the relative anonymity of a computer screen feel the need to do so? In short we all know what happened. It forced Nigel Doughty to stop using his Twitter account. And when things got worse people then started rounding on his son. Laughable at best, horrendous in reality.

Lately has seen a new twist. Over the past 6 months many fans have started taking frustrations directly with journalists reporting on Forest. Sometimes seemingly blaming them for the decline in Forests fortunes. I’m not exactly sure what planet these people live on at times. Anyway, so when said journalists report what they know, they get abuse from people who basically don’t like what they are seeing. Is this what we have to come to? Keyboard warriors ranting and raving at someone not telling him what he wants to hear.

And now this whole crux of where we are at now. The takeover. The only reason people start to believe anything is down to Twitter. Tweets from the supposed family of Fawaz al Hawsawi (do we really know if any of these accounts are legit) Pictures tweeted of his daughter in a t shirt that says Forest on it. So what? This could be an elaborate game of smoke and mirrors here. People are so desperate to believe that they start blindly believing any rumour posted and see truth where it might be.

Let me give you an example of how this can be. In a previous guise of this site, when we tried to be a news site, rather than a Views site, we noticed a rival site completely ripping us off. Everything we posted they would copy. So we made something up. We said we were signing Nathan Blake, and sure enough the other site copied us. Job done. Lo and behold the rumour took off, forgetting that the wider world would be watching it resulted in Forest having to release a statement saying they were not interested in signing him. The moral of this story? People believe anything if it is presented in a way that it looks like fact or official. So when the ball started rolling on this takeover being yesterday (the 21st) everyone just started blindly believing. Yes there has been a number of saner ones amongst us preaching caution, but the majority have simple believed it MUST be true. But that’s the problem with the Internet, it might not be, and often isn’t.

We have become so accustomed to instant news and gossip on Twitter and the like that when we don’t get it we get disillusioned. People will be checking for news, and that’s when attention seekers come in, and start boasting they know this and that’s happening. I’ve had people tweet me saying they saw so and so at the ground or the training ground, I guess in the hope that I’d take said news as gospel with little or no grounds and write it up. That or retweet it. People are that desperate for followers they will try anything like that. Embellishing the truth and creating lies merely to give the impression of new secret information they have.

Last week saw another evolution. Insulting players, Joel Lynch specifically. This is a player whose future is up in the air, and yet you have Muppets tweeting at him to basically sign up or go elsewhere. Yeah because a players whose future is in the balance is a brilliant target for your vitriol. To be fair to Lynch he basically presented the guys head on a platter by saying if he doesn’t sign his deal it will be the other guys fault. Cue abuse to the abuser. But then how much love is Matt Derbyshire going to have for a club when the fans everyday just tweet abuse at him. Same with just about any players on there. It hardly endears him to the club to try harder.

And now you get some sites hell bent on taking that news and passing it off as their own, or moulding it into their own view with no real substance, again purely for hits.It means hits come before integrity, and that's now somewhere you want to be.

I won’t change anything with this article. People will do as they have been doing. For me it’s more a cathartic process of getting this off my chest and hopefully maybe getting through to one or two people that Twitter rumours may be false. Abuse tweets to people Forest related are maybe not always the best idea. And finally, maybe, just maybe, there is a wider world out there, and everything doesn’t necessarily appear on Twitter first.

The Wonders of a Blue Away Kit

Having a blue away kit is something I saw a few people pass comment on, asking why Blue, when it’s more normally yellow or white. Well we have a few blue kits in the past and they by and large are in periods of success. Ok, there’s an exception to that, but more on that in a moment.....


We first had blue in the late 60's which wasn't a bad era for Forest. Ok it was after we had finished third in the mid 60's but we were still a top tier side.


We of course had the blue away kit when Stan Collymore was in his pomp for Forest. Bluey Purple with a turquoise trim, with umbro logos jauntily adorning it in a random pattern, this was one of the first kits I got myself (and not relying on parental presents) I also got this shirt with 4 and “COOPER” on the back in celebration of our first time using squad numbers, remember this was when kits lasted 2 years. I think most fondly remember this kit as I say we were good when we had this. We won at Old Trafford wearing it; it was our away kit when getting promoted. Many of the top players of the semi recent past wore it, Collymore, Roy, Stone, Bohinen, Pearce and Cooper.


We also had a dalliance with blue when we had been relegated to the Championship again a few years later. It’s first outing... the 8-0 thumping of Doncaster at Belle Vue. A lighter blue with red and white trims on it, at first I greatly disliked it. It was a rehash of the England shirt with colours being rotated round to suit Forest. It was also technically a third shirt as the away was the white with black and red lines down the right side. The likes of Van Hooijdonk and Campbell decorated this shirt as again it lasted 2 years and was largely successful for us.



A much darker blue, almost verging on the inky was the one we wore when losing to Sheffield United in the playoffs. Ok, not a glorious day but this was also one of my favourite ever kits. The dark blue combined with a very leafy green was an odd combo but one worked, with white piping along the front and white emblems and sponsors, the green side panels tucked round the arse at the bottom. For me it was a very smart shirt. And yeah we didn’t ultimately succeed but we came close so it can be synonymous with happy years.



However, another blue away kit, that again had a purple tinge to it, was in the Platt era. At the time of buying I liked it, but with time I went off it. For one it had a ridiculous collar that was like a tight round neck. So ridiculous that half the players used to have cut a V into it to make it less restrictive. I also arrived at university in Liverpool and half the time people thought it was a Chelsea shirt, as it was quite similar to one they had at the time. It was also worn by a mediocre Forest team. It mercifully barely lasted the season, and was replaced by the interchangeable kits, the red and white shirts that were designed to fit with each other’s shorts so we could wear combinations.


We did have the half black and blue away shirt a couple of years back. Whether I count this in our blue away section I don’t know. It was a mixture (with red trimmings too) There was the the “Inter Milan” away kit too, where it was a lighter blue (and looked cheaply made) These though were not predominately blue, so cannot be fully counted. For the sake of making a point.

Mark Arthur - Public Enemy No. 1?

Mark Arthur gets a lot of stick from Forest fans, in fact scratch that, a lot doesn’t describe the absolute tonnage of stick this single person gets.

Bear in mind he does have a catalogue of errors in his past and perhaps you can understand why. It mainly boils down to him being the face and voice as it was of the Doughty regime. Doughty provided the money and Arthur did the leg work with it. Negotiations, wrangling, alongside John Pelling.

This is where that dislike comes from. So many alleged deals breaking down in negotiations, misguided PR work. I think the most obvious cases were the “We’re Serious About Promotion” campaign which allegedly was his brainchild and shocked and appalled Doughty to see it after he came back from holiday. You don’t promise the world, and then deliver nothing.

The shambles surrounding the Whittingham and Pratley situation wasn’t great either. However, it was a double edged sword. For one you get criticised for showing lack of ambition for not going for said players, it was well known these were our prime targets. His radio Nottingham interview when he revealed we were in negotiations and he assumed they’d be Forest players by end of week or so was the not so clever part. At first I thought fair enough, he’s told us what we want to hear. He has reacted to the dismay at the lack of communication by communicating directly. However, the manner of how it was handled was shocking.

Unsurprisingly Swansea and Cardiff reacted badly to the news we said their best players were coming to us. This made any negotiation anything but impossible. He had cut his nose off to spite his face. I don’t know if he has received any PR guidance on this matter, but it was really the last vestiges of credibility amongst fans being wiped away in one fell swoop. Whittingham and Pratley never arrived. Was this directly his fault? Would they have signed had he not gone on the radio? We will never know however it apparent his efforts had made getting these players exponentially harder.

There are plenty of other stories that do the rounds that can be barely confirmed, but sound credible enough and is that common knowledge that there cannot be smoke without fire. The Wayne Routledge negotiations where he arrived in Nottingham having verbally agreed a deal for £x amount, only for Arthur to produce a contract to sign for around 25% less as a subtle negotiation tool. That isn’t going to go down well with anyone and smacks of amateurism. There is no wonder he went to Swansea instead.

Now he is getting stick for apparently having said the takeover was imminent, and now saying it isn’t there yet. Fans took to Twitter to chastise and berate him again. Except this one isn’t his fault. He never said Imminent. The Pye’s our new sponsors let that cat the bag. Now of course in the usual Forest witch hunt where the fans need a scapegoat for absolutely everything that goes wrong, they say he should have shut him up, Arthur probably told him it’s that close. Well that’s conjecture, you don’t know. Arthur may well have said that the takeovers close in privacy but to be fair to the man he never said that fateful word Imminent. Now most will gloss over this bit. I’m not absolving the man I am merely pointing out you can’t pin this one on him.

Think about all the catalogue of errors above. Not one of them was designed around harming the club. It’s just been a Boris Johnson esque blunder. Now agreed we don’t need the, but each and every time he acted in the best interests. Trying to curry more season ticket sales by saying we will go up. I have no doubt we were serious about promotion, it’s just we signed rubbish players. That’s as much Kinnears fault. As said the Whittingham and Pratley negotiations were a disaster, but he was trying to instil us with enthusiasm and pointing out our ambitious targets. The Routledge story is simply that he thought he could get Routledge for cheaper. If it succeeded not a bad thing.

We rarely pay over the odds for a player, that’s been a trump card. Whether this summer something changed in allowing McClaren's targets to cost us more I don’t know, but in the past I can’t recall too many signings other than McGoldrick which have been utter flops for quite a while. And on paper he was a marvellous signing.

So yeah he’s made some bad decisions, and probably there are better candidates. And if a new regime comes in he will be swept aside. He won’t be missed. But what I am trying to say after seeing some pure vitriol directed his way is that no he’s not the monster he is painted to be. He has not single handedly tried to bring Forest down. He’s just been a little misguided and wrong in what he has done. Enough to be replaced? Certainly. Enough to be vilified? No.

"Imminent" Takeover And Other Things

OK so since last week and the potential news of the Kuwaiti take over and the various back and forth's over whether it is or not happening things have almost pretty much reached a head. There were days the deal was definitely on and those it was definitely off. Now today has come the news that a takeover is close. This is good news, but we still don't know exactly who, though the Kuwait deal is still the most prominent and only real known offer. But no-one really knows. Mark Arthur says no-one at the club knows. The journalists don't know. Nobody knows. But there are plenty pretending to, people on Twitter being adamant they know the truth.

And that’s the crux of this whole sorry situation. People trying to point score whilst pretending to have an inside mole to get info. If you’d believe these people then all that happens at Forest is shadowy secret conversations. And like Hamlet, People hiding behind the arras listening in. Well Forest is not the Danish Royal Family. Otherwise we might have more money.

Journalists on twitter are a welcome presence. Often they provide good insider knowledge of what may or may not be happening. They know the insides of the club better and how the various machinations work. Usually.

The problem is, the general public, those with no access to any inside sources etc, rely on these people for their gossip. So when they “don’t know” or are rather vague people get angry because they are now used to having this information almost on tap. It doesn’t help when these journalists often present this authoritative air of we know what’s happening, only to be obviously flailing in the water on this particular subject. It is a double edge sword though. Comment, and get shown up to be out the loop, or stay quiet and have people angry for them not commenting.

I don’t profess to be in the know. We seldom try to report news, usually just our opinion on what is going on, occasionally I or one of the other writers will come across some information we pass on, but usually with more than a pinch of salt. So to see other sites constantly proclaiming various things ARE happening as news (and even though I did write about the Kuwaiti takeover happening, it was mainly my views on this) it is ridiculous. If Vital throw enough shit at a wall, some of it will stick.
The question of whether this news is happening is almost being over shadowed by the attention and aggression being caused by those angry at the journalists for failing to provide concise answers. In an environment where concise answers don’t exist.

Now it’s like there are two camps like with the anti Doughty and pro Doughty days. Believers and non believers. Those who do think this Kuwaiti is a knight in shining armour. And others are seeing him as a lying charlatan. Add in to this an undertone from some fringe loons trying to still claim this is all still Doughtys fault, like in some way they blame him for dying. The extreme anti Doughty crowd it seems remain extreme.

Either way if he does wrest control of the club, then it’s not starting a regime under great auspices. When apparently Leeds turned his overtures as he wasn’t wealthy enough. We aren’t in a position to be so choosy should the decision arise. I do question the fact that we are apparently his third choice. QPR and Leeds were his preference, so Forest isn’t his love driving this. SO what is? A need for success? A need for glory? Or a need for profit?

As I said previously, interesting times ahead.

Fawaz Al-Hasawi Interviews Translated

Thanks to forum member Scholesy who translated these for us/

Twitter comments translated

Went to as recent as 22nd May, not much in the way of content in terms of the acquisition of the club or mention of Forest/Leeds. Seems there was a falling out at Al Qadsia and he resigned, his tweets are basically trying to make out as if he's not in the wrong and been victimised by way of cryptic and direct tweets. A few people saying they take his side etc. A lot of club politics though I imagine this isn't what what most of you are interested in. Also wishes the club well in the future several times, says Al Qdsia will remain dominant.

"Brother, I've left it to them and this is my last season at Al Qadsia" Before he suprisingly resigned.

"We will go to the Premier league"

"And the worst thing is they got angry when I told them i'd resign"

"Hello, hello to all of the English" Assuming he's referring to the sharp increase in no. of followers. That's the most recent one.

And then there is this Youtube Interview

In Video linked in thread that I posted earlier: Get asked why leave early? With only 4-5 months left? Responds there were a lot of issues, one after another and another, I wasn't able to wait any longer. But make no mistake it was really tough for me to leave Al Qadsia. So I leave my brothers to their games if they are happy with them.

Gets asked, there's a lot of talk you were not close to the coaches, you don't sit with them, you don't talk with them about their needs resource wise, how true? Responds, I don't think I fell short of my duties for any game, and actually a month ago I was with the coaches and we discussed all their needs, and all their requests I complied with, but it was too late in the season if you ask me.

Guy in black t-shirt then goes on to say I feel he has not just been influential for Al Qadsia but Kuwaiti football as a whole. It really hurt me his departure, as I've entered his house, eaten in his house etc (loool) and i've stayed with his father, mother, sisters etc.

Guy after that says big loss to Al Qadsia and a great guy.

Guy after the other guy (lol) critcises Fawaz somewhat saying he should have completed the months remaining

Fawaz gets asked, why didn't you take a holiday to consider your position etc? Responds, laughing, holdiay for what? Says this is not the first of incidents of it's kind. Problem after problem, I wasn't able to take it anymore. I've been at the club for 15 years, since 1997, we've had worse problems but we were together not like this time.

Goes on to say he was paying the players personally at one point for a while, which isn't right, also denies trying to profit by using Al Qadsia, says Thank God I don't need it. 2.3m dollars was apparently the budget he gave at the beginning of the season.

I stopped at 30 mins cause it's too long Sorry guys, but on the right hand side I found a short one where he talks about the club the he's acquiring.



The English club, tell us about it. Responds, The English club, we have an agreement between us and them, and hopefully God willing after 2 weeks everything will be clear.

What's the club he gets asked again?

Responds It's an English club! I won't say the name. Division? Ofcourse not the premier league. No Brighton, No Watford.

QPR? they play in the premier, it is none of them. It has a great history.

What is Jamal's role? Jamal will become part of the president's office (laughing) I actually went to QPR with the guy in black besides him, we went and saw the stadium and went inside, but in terms of shares, I was expecting to be sold 52%, two days before the signing it went to 30%, the current club? It will be 100% yes.