When were Nottingham Forest last in the Premier League? How play-off final could end 23 years’ worth of hurt

There was a brief moment of hush around the City Ground. Not a peaceful quiet, a moment of serenity but quite the opposite.

Sheffield United had just scored their second goal and there appeared to be only one winner. All the playoff demons rushed to the surface. How can you make noise when there is so much to say?

Every supporter believes that their club is fated towards its own calamity. It is a tenet of fandom, an emotional comfort blanket against repeated failure. At the City Ground, they surely have more cause than most. Each of their four semi-final playoff defeats had come laced with pathos. Over the four ties, Forest had led for longer than they had trailed and it counted for less than nothing.

Own goals, defensive howlers, hat-tricks, goals conceded from the opposition half – add them all to heap of inexplicable conclusions. After a 2-0 away win at Yeovil in the League One playoffs, an enterprising local minibus company even made flyers to advertise deals for what they hoped would be an upcoming trip to Wembley… Drivers found them on their windscreens after watching a 5-2 defeat in the second leg. There’s no evidence to back that up; it exists as a hazy half-memory banished to history.

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Eventually, playoff heartbreak gave way to abject mediocrity. Is it better to have fought and failed than never to have fought at all? Who knows. But for 10 years until the end of last season, Forest never finished in the Championship top six but did finish in the bottom half six times.

When they got close, back roared self-inflicted misery. In 2019-20, under Sabri Lamouchi, Forest were seven points clear of seventh place with six games remaining and flunked thanks to last-minute equalisers and losing goals. With 17 minutes of their league season remaining, a four-goal swing was required. Forest went one better: they conceded three times to Stoke, Swansea scored twice at Reading.

If you were to survey 1,000 English football fans aged between 25 and 55, the majority would pick Forest in their ideal list of 20 Premier League teams. The glorious history, the brilliant away day, the central location and the quasi-philosophical notion of a “proper” club all sway in their favour. But the Championship is a blend of financial inequalities (due to parachute payments) and a rough meritocracy between the rest. And on merit, Forest deserved nothing better.

Perhaps history held Forest back. There is an expectation at the City Ground that can be debilitating based on little but two decades that were themselves founded upon the majesty of one man and a double order of magic. In 2014, then-owner Fawaz Al-Hasawi spoke of replicating Manchester City’s success despite Forest not playing top-flight football for 15 years.

Nottingham Forest’s last Premier League season

Atkinson’s tenure started badly and got worse (Photo: Getty)

The 1998-99 league season started with six points from three matches, but by then striker Pierre van Hooijdonk had gone on strike over the sale of Kevin Campbell to Everton and would not return until October.

Forest went 19 games without league victory, Dave Bassett was sacked in January and replaced by Ron Atkinson.

Atkinson sat in the wrong dugout before his first game, surrounded by amused Arsenal substitutes, and it was to be a portent of the short-term future.

His tenure included a record Premier League home defeat (8-1 against Manchester United) and between December and late-February, Forest conceded three or more goals in more than half of their league games.

They sold Scott Gemmill and Steve Stone to add to the loss of Campbell and only avoided a record low Premier League points total with victory in each of their final three matches of the season.

Or perhaps that is simply a handy excuse for the lack of long-term vision and the foiled attempts to shortcut their way forward. Under first Al-Hasawi and then Evangelos Marinakis, Forest became addicted to short-termism; 2010 remains the last full calendar year during which Forest didn’t appoint a new manager.

Each one came armed with a transfer list and met an owner fully prepared to deliver on it. The overspending on transfer fees, wages and severance payments, the vast turnover of players, was frightening. Everything became built on sand and left a piecemeal squad collected under different coaches with different styles and different ambitions.

That is why there was a hush last Tuesday: there were so many things to ponder, so many ghosts that had hid in the rafters and then circled the pitch in a crowing dance routine. Sheffield United supporters knew it. Nottingham Forest supporters knew it. Nottingham Forest’s players knew it. After the game, Steve Cook described how he hated the second half and hated all of extra-time too.

But five seconds later, that silence was replaced. The chant probably started in A block at one end of the Main Stand, forever primed for redevelopment, or behind the goal in the Radcliffe Road end where they now wave flags before each game. It continued in the Trent End until all four corners were singing: “Forest are magic, on and off the pitch”.

For the first time since 1997-98, Forest’s last promotion season to the Premier League, that chant contains something more than pure irony. Marinakis started by making the same mistakes as Al-Hasawi, but the appointment of Dane Murphy as CEO has instigated an overdue change in tack.

The loan signings this season made sense and have flourished. The January arrival of Steve Cook and Sam Surridge fuelled the team’s improvement at both ends of the pitch. Just as importantly, the core of last season’s team remained: Brice Samba, Joe Worrall, Scott McKenna, Ryan Yates, Lewis Grabban.

The appointment of Steve Cooper as manager was a masterstroke, albeit several games too late to secure automatic promotion. Cooper led Swansea to two successive top-six finishes but the style of football – at a club where that was deemed crucial – was criticised by fans.

Forest have been on a remarkable run since Cooper took charge (Photo: Getty)

At Forest, Cooper found a blank canvas and a fanbase desperate for a new hero. He has fallen in love with them and the feeling is more than mutual. Between Cooper’s appointment and the end of the season, Forest took more points than anyone else. They conceded the fewest goals and scored the second most.

The identity of Forest’s best players matters too. Brennan Johnson was the top goalscorer and top assist provider. Yates and Worrall were named in the Championship Team of the Season. All three are academy graduates. Through everything, dark times and darker times, the ability of the academy to produce players somehow persisted and its head, Gary Brazil, merits as much praise as anyone else. This season, Forest reached the FA Youth Cup final for the first time in their history. The future is bright.

And so, because of all that, this time it was different. Forest floundered against Sheffield United but were not beaten and did not quite manage to beat themselves. Samba was the star, a miraculous extra-time save and three more in the penalty shootout. Thirty-six thousand Forest fans will head to Wembley on Sunday for the first time since 1992 and they could have sold out their allocation twice over. Most of those will tell you that being clear favourites for the playoff final feels a little misplaced, partly because of the Sheffield United performance and partly because the fear never quite leaves you.

But whatever happens, next season need not be another year zero. The clock does not need to reset again. Loan players would leave if Forest don’t go up, but Cooper’s work this season makes them well-placed to attract the next crop. Johnson and Worrall may be sold for record high prices, but the academy is busy forging their replacements.

All that’s left is to make sure that their biggest match in two decades doesn’t contain any more fearful hushes. Now is the time for noise, to sing from Wembley’s stands about what once made this club great and what just might take them closer to greatness than they have been in far too long.

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