Forest Villains... Gary Megson

For the latest in the Villains series of articles we are going come a little more recent than the previous ones and focus on the short but destructive tenure of Gary Megson at the City Ground.

Lets not forget that this spell as manager was not Megsons first spell at the club,having a short lived time as a player with the club under Brian Clough. he was signed in the summer of 1984, before Clough decided "he couldn't trap abag of cement" and after 5 months without an appearance he was moved on to Newcastle. Under such auspices legend are not made.

His management career before joining Forest had seen some success. He had gotten West Brom promoted before falling foul of the chairman just before the Reds, but had also had seen spells at Stoke (replaced when a new board wanted their own man) Blackpool (where he was assisted by now Manchester United assistant Mike Phelan) Norwich and Stockport.

Megson replaced Kinnear after he had lost fans dressing room and chairman support. Kinnear increasingly seemed erratic in behaviour, first saying all fans on the Internet were "morons" and then declaring the Derby fixture was just another match. Finally he said the club was too stuck in the past, which seeing as Kinnears success was with Wimbledon would be an alien concept to him.

SO for Megson the job should have been easy. Replace an unpopular manager, the teams already plummeting for the drop, so just steady the ship a bit, and if we go down, it will be seen as Kinnears fault mainly. Well that didn't work.

First was the simply laughable decision to place Gareth Taylor (already much maligned) in the centre of defence. After a successful cup run had earned the Reds around £500k which he was given to spend, he splashed it all on one striker. Step forward Mr. Scott Dobie. One of the greatest wastes of time in a Red shirt in awhile. He also,though probably correctly, complained at the lack of fitness of the players. Kinnear had relied on team spirit ethos like Wimbledon to succeed, whereas Megson was very much of the mould of getting the players physically right.These were two extremes which did mix well.

Unsurprisingly, Forest were relegated. Although fans hoped that Megson would bring us survival ultimately it was agreed he had inherited a rubbish squad anyway, with players like Rogers and Impey obviously just taking the wages and running. Players who were unpopular and had failed were transfer listed, Marlon King, Kevin James, Alan Rogers and Adam Nowland, but so too was David Johnson, which proved unpopular.

Then came Megson's signings to get us up. Nicky Southall and Ian Breckin proved to be successful, but Nicky Eaden, Gino Padula, Eugene Dadi, and Gary Holt would all proved ultimately to be failures. The team was playing horrible football, with some dire dire performances.

Then came Megson's strange gambit as to why the team were under performing. According to Megson there were dark forces at work in the club conspiring against him. This meant payers under performed, and that this was to blame rather than rubbish signings, strange team selections and horrific football. It was never explained who or what this "mole" was. Whether it was part of the board,the back room staff or the playing staff in unsure. It is true however that post-Megson the team seemed released.

What did come out afterwards is pretty much the entire squad didn't like Megson. His training regime was hated, the style of play was disliked, and getting rid of him was like a breath of fresh air. It certainly felt like for the fans.

In November 2005, Megson also broke off any dealings or interviews with the Evening Post after they suggested that the fact Forest were in the bottom half wasn't really evidence of someone doing their job right and suggested Megson wasn't up to it. That showed them Gary!!!!
Indeed, under Megson, I witnessed a possible low in my attending of games with the away defeat at Barnsley, on a damp dreary day. Forest were so abjectly bad in this game, that were started actually cheering with the Barnsley fans as there was no way you could support that team. Made even better by the fact Megson had to walk back to the tunnel right under the Forest fans unleashing a large amount of abuse his way.

Another low point would be at Yeovil, with Megson inviting in fans into the dressing room to give the post match team talk. What kind of desperation is that a manager resorts to bringing in two fans.The last reserves of a desperate man it certainly seems so.

One year after taking the role Megson resigned. A move he claims lost him £500k, ironically the money he wasted on Dobie. The team bounced back under Frank Barlow and Charlie McParland,and very nearly made the playoffs.

Megson went onto Bolton where he was also largely unpopular before being fired and now is manager of Sheffield Wednesday, who have largely failed under his leadership.

Forest Villains.... David Platt

Aha, yes maybe one of the most obvious candidates for one of these pieces, but yes, he truly left an indelible mark on this club for being vilified. His name came up on a pub quiz machine the other day, I couldn't bring myself to answer the question and had someone else select his name.

David Platt was installed as manger of Nottingham Forest following our relegation from the Premier League in 1999. At the time it seemed brave move. Platt after retiring had toured Europe trying to learn from many others the art of good managing and coaching, his playing career had been illustrious, England captain, successful in Italy and with Arsenal. He must succeed!

He had been in charge at Sampdoria for a brief period but technically couldn't manage as he didn't have the requisite badges. This tenure was rather short lived due to this problem, but he DID have experience at a top level club of managing.

And he was backed. Backed like no other manager probably has been at Forest. We had quite a bit of money to burn following the sales of a few of the las Premier League team. Stone had left for a big fee before the end of the season and very notably Pierre van Hooijdonk.

He went about making signings. Riccardo Scimeca being the first high profile one, bringing the former England Under21 defender from Aston Villa for a princely £2.5million. He followed this u with Gianluca Petrachi, Salvatore Matrecano and Moreno Mannini from the Italian Leagues he knew so well. These 3 names live long in Forest fans memories as being unmitigated disasters. Each one barely lasting out 3 months before being consigned to the scrap heap. They had cost us around £5million for this hapless trio. None of these players would ever amount to much else in their career, which illustrates how crap they were.

Given a remit to get us promotion we managed to finished 14th in his first season. I at the time missed much of this season as I was at university, I did make it to quite a few games, especially away games, one such one was a horrendous 3-0 defeat away at Tranmere in what is possibly the worst performance I have ever seen a Forest side putout. It also felt like every time I came home from Uni we had more players I never recognised such was the passion of Platt for chopping and changing. A roll call of the average and the never could be's.

I had particular dislike of our signing of Mikkel Beck, coming a week after I had derided him to friends whilst watching Derby in some match on Sky. Telling everyone that he was without doubt the worst player I had ever seen (anyone else remember him being subbed back off 10 mins after coming for Boro at Forest for being THAT bad?)I couldn't believe it when informed we had signed him, thinking it to be a joke, but no we did,albeit a brief period, he even scored.

We had also spent big on a number of other names, Stern John and Jim Brennan in particular chasing promotion, with spiralling wages. This in turn led to the fact we were in trouble financially, culminating in us pulling out of spending a paltry £300k on Robbie Blake as we couldn't afford it.

Money was drying up, and we didn't seem closer to the Premier League. Platt increasingly seemed clueless but received board backing. My refection on it is that I don't think there was the same clamour to see him ousted as there was with the likes of Megson and a largely successful Calderwood.

However he started the rot by spending extremely badly. Our second season was one of improvement, we did finish higher, but there was not much hope of continuing this as due to the parlous condition of the finances, made worse by the collapse of ITV digital, and the money to have come from that deal disappearing, we were consigned to shipping out people.

We had to let John go on the cheap later as it turned out a deal was in place to pay a £250k fee if he scored more than 15 goals in a season. What kind of deal was that??!!A star striker signed but with add ons for what is an average number of goals for a striker? Ridiculous. More so was the signing of Gary Jones. I still think he might be one of the most pointless signings we ever made. He was useless.



We then despite all this signed David Johnson, which although he turned out to be a good acquisition in later years, was at the time a risk, and at first he took time to settle.

One highpoint was the brief loan of Ben Olsen before his injury,which was a real shame.

But by and large his reign was truly a dark day for the club,leading it to the stage where we were on our knees. Fans had started to turn and when Sven Goran Eriksson, Platts mentor at Sampdoria came calling anting him as the U-21 boss I think every Forest fan was relieved that we had gotten rid of the walking disaster zone. His subsequent results with England confirmed he was clueless. And it speaks volumes that has never managed another club.

OK, shortly after we bounced back and made the playoffs but the legacy of his spending meant that young players had to be sold off. Jenas in particular being sold to basically let the club survive. Dawson and Reid was money we couldn't turn down,and unable to spent to replace we dropped down to League One.

OK,he never made the wonderful faux pas like Kinnear had by calling fans idiots and moaning about the clubs history, or like Megson talking about sinister forces at work (what the hell was that all about?) But his consistently bad record puts him ahead of managers who over saw relegation to the clubs lowest ebb in in terms of hatred from Forest fans.

Platt is still vilified Trentside. His record for Forest suggests why. The final nail in this coffin I will offer is this. The stats don't lie
Platt's managerial record
Played: 103,
Won: 34,
Drawn: 25,
Lost: 44

Forest Villains... Irving Scholar et al

In our latest new feature we will look at various people who somehow wronged the club, whether they are an ex-player, manager or in this case a former chairman.

There were more obvious choices to start a new feature called Forest Villains with. Kris Commons and Pierre van Hooijdonk immediately spring to mind, and in time we will come to them. However, I would like to go back to the 1997-1999 era and choose a man, well men really, but one in particular was the focal point, who I believe were key in not only our fall from grace, but also nearly bought about the end of Nottingham Forest Football Club.



Although 1997 was an eventful year for Nottingham Forest on the pitch, relegation from the Premier League, signing Pierre van Hooijdonk, hiring Dave Bassett, these are all memorable events most fans can recall.

What isn’t in the board level turmoil? An on off takeover bid had been rumbling since last 1996. Two rival consortia both bidding to take over the club, who had decided that the traditional member ownership system it maintained was outdated. The club had seen the first influx of investors in the Premier League; money was rife like never before, and if you can’t beat them, join them.

Sandy Anderson had been bidding for the club; he lost out ultimately to the consortium offering more to the club members. The club was sold, and a new group came in promising the world. Irving Scholar, Nigel Wray, Julian Markham and Phil Soar were in charge. Irving Scholar was an ex Spurs chairman, in the Venables days. Nigel Wray and Julian Markham were London based business men, Wray being also the chairman of Saracens Rugby Club, and Phil Soar, he was something to do with books (Illustrated History’s of Clubs) one point on Scholar, and he lived in Monaco as a tax exile. And was an integral part of our board and decision making. From the Mediterranean.

Bare in mind Scholar has been banned from Spurs after he lost his chairmanship to Alan Sugar after he was largely made bankrupt by property price crashes. He had then made a deal with Maxwell to bail him out. There’s a legacy of an unscrupulous character.

None of these men had any previous connection to the club; none of them were Forest fans, from Nottingham, nothing. Yet they had decided to pump money into our club. Why is this? Well football was just under going its great renaissance at the time. Money was everywhere; it was a brave new era. All problems could be solved with cash. The new board had a wondeful way to solve this. Float the club on the stock market. Yes we all look at this now in the future and know this never really worked at all. I can’t recall one of it being a success, but in 1997 it was still seen as a great method of raising capital.

This where things started to go wrong. The new bard had intended to raise £20million via this method. This was when £20million could get you a lot in football. Rather than now it might get you 3 journeymen African strikers. However, depending on whom you believe there was an integral mistake, the new board had overestimated and overvalued the club, and they only raised £2milion. Later Wray would blame the Nottingham public for not having the foresight to follow through on their great vision, and it was them who are to blame for what happened. Not gross financial mismanagement.

Needless to say this greatly undermined the share price for those that had bought shares, the values plummeted. This isn’t great news for any club.
But things on the pitch were going better after relegation. Forest were blossoming in the Championship, van Hooijdonk and Campbell firing us to glory. The team were playing some wonderful stuff at times, and if that failed, give it Pierre and he will batter it into the goal from long range. We rode back to the Premier League on the crest of a wave.



Then it all started to go wrong. Campbell was sold, the waters muddy somewhat here as to who blames who. Bassett claims to have known nothing about it. The decision being taken at board level by Scholar (who was in charge of the football side of management of the club, Wray the financial) between they deemed the£3million offered made sense, Campbell hadn’t been a success previously in the top flight, there were questions over his back, and so he was sold behind the managers back. Then Cooper was sold, a gentlemans agreement to sell him to his home town club, and we were in disarray before we had begun. Oh did I forget to mention out star striker had walked out the club after Campbell was sold? I didn’t need to specify that, we all know Pierre chucked his toys out the pram and decamped back to Holland. He does say he had an agreement to be sold to a bigger club, I am inclined after all this time to believe him, the way Scholar and Wray seemed to operate was lie lie and lie again.

That Premier Campaign was a disaster which not a lot of positives can be taken from. Record runs of games without a win, star players sold (Steve Stone left for Villa, Gemmill dropped on board demands) and we hadn't made any money. Oh this is where it comes down to. Because why else do 4 guys who have no connection with a club buy the club and float it? Oh to make a profit? Yes exactly, so after 18months or so Nigel Wray snuck out the backdoor, selling his remaining shares to Soar and Scholar.
Bassett was fired. Not to his face mind you. He found out from the papers. Then the genius idea of bringing Ron Atkinson came in. A legacy of mistake after mistake. They even allowed him to splurge £1mill on Carlton Palmer!!



Nigel Wray of course let’s remember was involved in Saracens. Saracens moved to Vicarage Road and I remember the very angry 18 year old self rants, basically this called into question whether he had vested interest in 2 clubs. This was a rule that was banned since the Maxwell days. So we were being investigated for him just being there. One quote that sums up Wrays involvement is this.

"The club has squandered two years. This was a tragic lost opportunity to rebuild a great community asset. Nigel Wray was never very much involved in it [the club]. It's now much worse off then when he bought in."

After Wray went(with a £1mill loss), in came Eric Barnes, a local guy, and he in turn bought Doughty into the fold, who then invested his money in the club, kept the club running and bought up enough shares to take over the club. Except in what almost felt like a long term precursor to Liverpool’s drawn out take over the incumbent pair didn’t want to give up that easily it meant they lost money, and went to the courts to try and stop it. If this would have worked, Forest would have folded. Instead they then decided to only attempt to sue for the money back from Doughty. This all does rather seem familiar writing it now to what occurred at Anfield. The court case did reveal wonderful insights that most of the “gang of four” hated each other, Markham even bugged meetings as he was sure he was being conspired against him. He also revealed he didn’t like Soar. The case was thrown out.

The legacy of all this was the club was nowhere near the Premier League anymore and now felt the need to watch every penny. We haven’t been back to the Premier League since. We do have a board with the clubs best interests at heart. It also makes me laugh when people bemoan Doughty when you realise what we did have before. How short memories are of people. We genuinely did have a board in it just for the money. Doughty does have the club at heart. Clubs no longer float themselves. This isn’t just our legacy, Celtic and Sheffield United failed massively too. You just have the modern craze of rich foreign owners. I can’t help thinking if this won’t go the same way.

Maybe some will view this as harsh, but is underlines that anyone in football to make money is likely to fail. These people went into this with no regard for the football club, but purely their bank balance. That’s why they are the first villains. People talk of greed like Commons, well he is small fry compared to these guys. They nearly killed the club.