Left Brian: January

Forest 2014-15 [illustration: Adam Poole]

Ay up duck.

Well, let’s not pull any punches. Going into Derby away we had been on an atrocious run: two wins in 20 games, a record that should see pretty much any manager long gone before they even get to the twentieth game, let alone the twenty-first. Luckily, we don’t have just any manager. We have Stuart Pearce, a man who has retained the backing of the supporters and, crucially, the owner.

Ahead of the Derby game we all heard what Danny Mills had to say. If you didn’t, he basically took the opportunity to kick Stuart Pearce while he was down. He made comments along the lines that he always expected our Stuart to fail. He also expected the good start and, ultimately, the tail-off. He expected the players to have respect for our legend when he came in then quickly lose that respect and begin to lose some games. As psychics go, Mr Mills didn’t see what was coming next.

On the back of our (spoiler alert) win at Derby, Psycho took the opportunity to apologise to Danny Mills for dropping him at Man City – an act it seems had stuck in Mills’ mind for the last ten years and fuelled his desire to stick the boot in. A wonderful response to a nonsense statement from an underwhelming player, made all the better for having the statement read to him live on the BBC while Garth Crooks struggled to contain his laughter at the humiliation being heaped on the fledgling football pundit. I can only wonder if he will make similar comments to Gary Lineker when he’s dropped for the less-than-brilliant analysis of Alan Shearer. Indeed, it has to be said that just as Danny Mills wasn’t the best right back at Man City, he’s nowhere near the best right back turned pundit – an honour obviously bestowed on Gary Neville. He’s no Lee Dixon, either. And Albert Ferrer’s not bad on Revista de La Liga.

"Oi, sunshine. Run a cuppa tea on for Micah will you. Good lad"

 

Mills’ pre Derby comments did, however, get me thinking about a couple of things. Firstly, in football, it genuinely doesn’t matter where you come from. It doesn’t really matter where you are. It only matters where you’re going. We may not be reaching for automatic promotion this season. We may not be in with a shout of even the playoffs come Easter, but we’re making strides forward. For me, it’s been a pleasure supporting Forest under Pearce’s tenure so far. Yes, the football has been difficult to enjoy too much at times, but equally we have played some great stuff in patches.

It was once said that you need to taste the bitter to truly enjoy the sweet, and when I think back to managers we’ve had here – Cotterill, McLeish, Davies – having a boss who speaks open and honestly with the fans, cares as much as we do, and ultimately is one of our own, is as sweet as can be. You see, as the Premier League gravy train pulls further and further away from the 90% of fans who don’t support the media-frenzied megastar league, I think it becomes more and more important to really buy into your club, not just the team or who they’re playing. Right now, Forest aren’t a great football team. They have a great squad, bags of potential and some serious ability, but the football has been poor at times. However, it feels like that doesn’t matter too much. We have a legend in charge, and through a collection of circumstances he seems likely to be here for a while yet. I, for one, love seeing him at the City Ground. Personally, I’d sooner be relegated with Pearce in charge than promoted with Davies in charge. That’s something that the 90% will understand, but the Premier League generation won’t, unfortunately.

Front-row seat for the Goal That Saved Fergie

 

In 1990 Manchester United rolled into town, with Alex Ferguson widely acknowledged to have one game to save his career. After four years in charge and little success, Man United’s board were ready to pull the trigger. I remember being at that game, a cup game in January, and losing to a single Mark Robbins goal as Ferguson kept his job. I think it’s reasonably fair to say that keeping faith with him paid dividends for United as he went on to preside over the most successful, and sustained, period of success for any club ever [apart from Liverpool between 1973 and 1990 – Ed.]. Of course, it helped that United went on to win the FA Cup in 1990 after knocking us out, but I hope you can see the parallels. It wouldn’t actually be unreasonable to presume that Pearce had one game to save his job going into the Derby derby game. For all the criticisms of Danny Mills’ comments, the timing wasn’t a coincidence. He knew Pearce was on the brink.

So, when Henri Lansbury headed into our own net to hand Derby the lead it did start to feel uncomfortably like we might have to say goodbye to Pearce. Not only would that be wrenching because of his status here, it would signal a re-set on the plans for progress. Like I said before, it doesn’t matter where you are, it matters where you’re going, and changing manager again means our journey would be back to square one: a huge snake in a difficult game of snakes and ladders, and with our embargo hanging over us, you have to question just what kind of snake that new manager would be. He’d be a mercenary, someone here for the payoff and interim job. Not someone we could get behind through thick and thin; not someone we could take to our hearts and feel like they’re truly one of us. Unless you’re as thick as Danny Mills, you can see that cutting Pearce open would reveal a tree running through him.

BBC pundits have a disagreement on MOTD2

 

Anyway, at 1-0 down the nerves were really kicking in for the fans, so they must have been horrendous for Pearce. Unlike other games, however, we did not fold. We played the cards we were dealt and pushed on. For the first time in 21 games, Forest actually looked like we wanted it. This was a different mentality to what we’d seen only a week earlier as we rolled over for a poor Sheffield Wednesday side.

When the chance fell to Assombalonga, it was taken with the kind of neat finish that Rafik Djebbour would be proud of. A scrappy goal, but a goal nonetheless. An equalizing goal, no less. At Derby. We’d pegged them back and looked to be taking a valiant point, keeping Stuart Pearce his job and allowing us to kick on and fight another day. Relief.

The keener eyed among you may have noted a theme in this piece – that it generally doesn’t matter where you come from, only where you go. In the dying minutes Derby-born Ben Osborn picks up the ball for us. What you need to remember about Ben Osborn is that he is young. Very young. A left-back at Derby County as a child, Osborn was released aged 9 and picked up by Forest, where he played No3 in the youth academy until he was 18. He seemed to be a victim of Billy Davies’ agenda as he was overlooked for the whole of last season. So, at 20 years old he’s in his first full season, his debut coming in the game after Davies was sacked last season (he was played in midfield by Gary Brazil, after he’d taken over from Davies).

Osborn had had a good game away at Derby. He’s had a good season, really. For one so young, he’s really controlled the midfield, and as he picks up the ball just inside the Derby half he sees his run. His first touch is sublime. He puts the ball into his stride, on his left foot, and has five Derby defenders in close proximity. Then he sets off on the sort of bursting run down the inside left channel that we would have expected to see in that FA Cup game in 1990 from Stuart Pearce himself.

He breaks into the area. He now has seven Derby players closing in on him, and from about 18 yards unleashes the sort of left-footed thunderbolt that those of us loyal to Stuart Pearce were used to seeing when he played for us. Battering Rams, you might say. It was a wondrous strike, filled with emotion, irony, and familiarity. A strike that saw young Ben Osborn become a man in front of our very eyes, against the team who deemed him not good enough when he was nine (perhaps this was why the numpty came on the pitch and threw a punch at Kelvin Wilson, and why those mouthbreathers smashed up Fawaz’s motor), and for the man who put his faith, and his job, in young Osborn’s hands. Or, indeed, his left boot.

I think it’s fitting that the goal that has perhaps saved Stuart Pearce’s career here was the kind of goal he would have scored himself. I think it’s wonderful that the goal has come from a player brought through our academy, a player Billy Davies overlooked, a player given the chance to shine by Stuart Pearce, a player who signifies that you don’t need to go out and spend millions in the transfer market if you can develop your own and give them a chance.

Twenty-five years on, people still talk of Mark Robins’ goal against us as the one that saved Alex Ferguson at Man United. The goal that ultimately was responsible for the club giving the manager time to build his squad and go on to win everything there is to win in club football. I can only hope that in 25 years’ time Ben Osborn is the new Mark Robins. The injury-time winner at Derby seems like a fitting goal to be the one to remember as that which set us on our way to glory once again.