“Good lad!”

late 1960s

Forest reserves v various teams 
(Central League, City Ground)

In the years when I was considered too young to go to watch Forest, our regular family routine was that Dad would take Robin to Forest first team matches and Mum would take me to the ice stadium. I would say she took me ice skating, but I was ungainly and lacking in confidence, so ice-walking-gingerly-around-clutching-the-fence-at-the-side would be more accurate. Then, to give Dad his weekly fix of Forest and to make sure I was brought up in the same faith, the roles would be reversed when the first team were playing away. Robin would go skating with Mum and I would watch Forest reserves with Dad.

Dad wasn't one of those fans who has a radio welded to his ear, but updates on the Ivor Thirst scoreboard behind the Bridgford End meant we could keep up with how the first team were doing. This usually meant keeping track of how many we were losing by, as the Reds were in a period of decline after the double-chasing 1966-67 season.

Those games saw me betray my youth by blurting out whatever came into my head by way of encouragement to the reserves. So it was that I would yell “Come on you red tomatoes!” (scanning the limited horizons of a four-year-old to find something red to liken the Forest players to), “Come on you red dustbins!” (likewise, but clearly abandoning my search for red things in favour of something that summed up how rubbish I must have thought we were playing) and, much to Dad's amusement, “Good lad!” (following his lead in praising a good bit of play by one of the younger players, who would have been about fifteen years my senior). I also had the chance at a young age to 'spot' one or two stars of the future, most notably a young Duncan McKenzie, whose goals and fancy flicks would not be seen regularly in the first team for a few more years.

This routine must have continued for a couple of years, but I can no longer remember how long Dad and I continued to watch the reserves on first-team away match days once I had been given my first season-ticket (1969-70), at the ripe old age of six. I resumed the habit of watching the reserves in my mid-teens towards the end of the decade, when Ivor Thirst's updates tended to bring much better news.