“Oh, what a beautiful goal! Oh, yes indeed!”

Hugh Johns was in some respects the nearly man of football commentary. He will be remembered by many as the 'other' commentator when England won the World Cup, though fewer will recall his description of Geoff Hurst's hat-trick goal. “Here's Hurst – he might make it three... He has, he has! So that's it! That's it!!” is unlikely to yield a name for a post-pub TV quiz show. His excitable “One nothing, the Wolves!” wasn't mimicked in playgrounds like David Coleman's trademark “One nil!” His sheepskin coat didn't become cartoon shorthand for the man and his job the way John Motson's did. And Brian Clough impersonators on comedy shows addressed their nasal put-downs to Brian, Jimmy or David, but not Hugh.

But for those who watched their football in the Midlands between the late 60s and the early 80s, he captured perfectly the excitement of an era when you didn't know which teams would be in the top four from one season to the next, nor yet which few clubs would be featured on the TV highlights programmes from one week to the next. This was an age when up to eight Midlands teams would battle for regional supremacy in the top flight, when beer at home meant Davenport's and when a weekend's TV coverage would be highlights of two games on Match of the Day and one on Star Soccer. The latter would be followed by just the goals from one or, if you were very lucky, two games from Midlands teams' away trips to the territories of other regional TV companies.

Sunday lunch would be bolted down so you could hurry to the telly in time to hear the familiar brassy big-band theme tune and there, high on a windswept gantry, would be the familiar avuncular face of Hugh Johns, ready to guide you through the drama to come. And the games always seemed to be dramatic, even a day after you knew the result, for he gave you the impression he was as excited about football as you were and his enthusiasm lit up even the dullest of games. He could describe a dour game in foul conditions with no trace of “Why am I here?” miserablism and he could enthuse at the prospect of an imminent attack without resorting to the kind of screeching near-hysteria that leaves no emotion left to describe real excitement.

His commentaries are perhaps most memorable for his vocal mannerisms, uttered in his distinctive rich tones - sometimes thoughtful, frequently amused, always engaging and occasionally accompanied by an “Oof!” of surprise or displeasure which was only surpassed by Brian Moore's distinctive “Woof!”. Every shot on goal was a “drive”, many of which went “across the face of the goals” (whether the 's' was an inexplicable plural or a rare archaic genitive was never made apparent). He would gamely attempt the native pronunciation of the names of foreign teams (who were usually “crack”, especially if they came from eastern Europe) – for example, CSKA Sofia became “SAY-si-kaa”. His idiosyncratic approach to English also gave us the likes of “liddle Archie Gemmill” of “Noddingham” Forest.

He was perhaps most in his element when describing goals (“Oh, what a beautiful goal! Oh, yes indeed!”). His infectious enthusiasm was the same whether it was Derby fighting for the Championship (“Hector is on... Hector is in... And Hector has scored!”), Hereford sampling life in Division 2 (“It's true what they say about Dixie!”) or Notts County grabbing Trentside bragging rights (“And there's Bradd with the winner! Les Bradd, 45 seconds to go!”).

The 80s arrived, ATV became Central, live matches became the norm and Hugh Johns left the Midlands for HTV, where he was to continue working into his 70s. Star Soccer was no more and we spent our Sunday afternoons watching Elton Welsby trying to convince us of the merits of the latest dire goal-less ninety minutes we were witnessing between two of the so-called big five of the time. The footballing fortunes of most of the Midlands' big names waxed and waned (waned, mostly) and TV coverage of any teams other than the favoured few varied between patchy and non-existent. Football and its TV coverage were taking the first tentative steps in what became a steep descent towards today's soul-less era.

But for those of us whose diet of televised football was provided by the likes of Mike Bailey, Bruce Rioch, Bob Hatton, Keith Weller or Bombers Brown and Bowyer, plying their trade at grounds such as Molineux (funny stand of ever-decreasing roof spans), Highfield Road (invalid carriages) or the Baseball Ground (mud, and lots of it), there is only one voice on the soundtrack of our football memories. War-time Fleet Air Arm pilot, latter-day freemason and for thirteen years the voice of Midlands football, Hugh Johns will be sadly missed and fondly remembered.

This article first appeared in the Blooming Forest fanzine in 2007.

Two goals are enough, tra-la-la-la-la!

Nottingham Forest 2  Liverpool 0 

(European Cup 1st Round 1st Leg, The City Ground, 13th September 1978, 38,318)

Football didn’t feature prominently on children’s TV in the 70s, but once in a while a game came along that was considered important enough to draw to the attention of the nation’s youngsters. Wednesday 13^th September 1978 was one such occasion. I had not long turned fifteen and was no longer the target audience of the pre-news programming at teatime, but I found myself watching as Newsround or an ATV equivalent turned its attention to the night’s big match.

League Champions Forest’s reward for finishing seven points clear of Liverpool was to be drawn against them in the first round of the European Cup. To the neutral, this was a rare all-British tie in the continent’s premier club trophy. To anyone living within the sound of Little John, dreams of trips to the continent’s great footballing cities were overshadowed by the considerable risk that our European adventure might end without a stamp in our passports. We were the team often thought of, somewhat disparagingly, as a “ragtag and bobtail” outfit and we were playing the Kings of Europe, with the decisive second leg to be played at Anfield. In European terms, this was David versus Goliath – though the fact that the giant had only scored once in failing to win any of the clubs’ four meetings in the last year suggested it might be a close contest.

So I was expecting an even-handed assessment of the two clubs’ chances, talk of how exciting it was for the domestic game that its two best clubs would fight it out on the European stage or how disappointing that only one of them could progress in the tournament. However, I looked on in amazement, disbelief and increasing anger as the report focused almost entirely on Liverpool, with scarcely a mention of who they were actually playing. The coverage was much the same as it would have been if they had been playing a crack Eastern European team (teams from behind the Iron Curtain were always described as “crack”) or a bunch of Scandinavian part-timers escaping their day jobs as teachers and firemen. Any reference to the original Reds was perfunctory, the unspoken subtext being that our role was merely to turn up and be swatted casually aside as the Merseysiders strolled to the next round and maintained the natural order of things.

This assumption may well have been prompted by the teams’ starts to the League season. Liverpool, stung by seeing their title ripped from their grasp by the upstarts from the Midlands, had won their first five matches, scoring 19 goals in the process. We, meanwhile, had drawn our first four matches, three of them 0-0, before warming up for our European adventure with a 2-1 win against Arsenal. Our problems in front of goal had begun towards the end of the Championship season, the title-clinching point at Highfield Road being the first of three goalless draws in our last five games.

This unlikely run of six 0-0s in nine League matches had prompted the departure of Peter Withe (deemed by messrs Clough and Taylor to be past it ) and the rapid discarding of his replacement, Steve Eliot. That win against Arsenal had seen Clough ring the changes and introduce two of the club’s promising youngsters. Eliot’s replacement, Garry Birtles, had a single second division appearance to his name, while 16-year-old debutant Gary Mills became Forest’s youngest ever player in League football.

The following Wednesday it was Birtles who wrote his name into Forest folklore. He had already forced a flying save from Ray Clemence with a twenty-five yard piledriver from a narrow angle when he gave the Reds the lead after 26 minutes. Ian Bowyer helped on Kenny Burns’s through ball to Tony Woodcock, who could have scored himself but unselfishly squared the ball to Birtles, leaving Clemence stranded and his new strike partner with an easy tap-in into the Trent End goal.

Chants of “You’ll never score at Anfield” suggested the travelling Merseysiders were not unduly concerned. For another hour the action continued fast and furious, with chances at both ends and no shortage of firm tackles and late lunges in between, the perpetrators often notable for their curly perms and moustaches. As the minutes ticked by cocky chants of “One goal’s not enough, tra-la-la-la-la!” (to the tune of Boney M’s Brown Girl In The Ring) rang out from the away fans below me in front of the East Stand. But with three minutes remaining, Birtles crossed from the left, Woodcock nodded the ball back across goal and left-back Colin Barrett, of all people, smashed a volley past England’s second-best keeper and into the roof of the Bridgford End net.

The final moments of the game were one long celebration of one of the great goals of Forest’s history, with what seemed like the entire ground letting the visitors know that “Two goals are enough, tra-la-la-la-la!” We would learn later that a similar exchange took place on the pitch, with Phil Thompson taunting Birtles that a single goal would not be sufficient in the second leg, only for Birtles to seek him out after Barrett’s strike and ask, “Will two be enough, then?” The final whistle went and the Liverpool players trooped off angrily, many of them too mardy to shake hands with their conquerors.

Two goals would indeed be enough, as the Reds held out for another goalless draw a fortnight later and the rest, of course, is history. That September night I left the ground and joined the masses chatting excitedly about the match while waiting to emerge from Trentside onto Trent Bridge. Like everyone else, my head was full of how we had just humbled the European champions, but I also found myself thinking back to that one-sided teatime preview of the game and my satisfaction at the result was all the greater because we had exacted revenge on its biased author.

Forest: Shilton, Anderson, Barrett, McGovern, Lloyd, Burns, Gemmill, Bowyer, Birtles, Woodcock, Robertson.

“Buried in their own back yard”

Manchester United 0 Nottingham Forest 4  

(Division 1, Old Trafford, 17th December 1977; 54,374) 

When table-topping Forest visited Old Trafford eight days before Christmas their hosts hadn’t won the League since pipping the Reds to the title in 1967 – after which they would in fact have to wait a quarter of a century to win it again. Although they were not challenging Forest at the top of the table they were a match for anyone on their day and the game was nonetheless viewed as a tough test of Forest’s Championship credentials. United were the best-supported club in the country and had one of the more prominent hooligan contingents, so Old Trafford was never an easy place for a visiting team or its supporters.

As was often the case when the first team was away, I was at the City Ground watching the reserves that day. The line-up against Blackburn Rovers reserves contained the usual mixture of seasoned pros and promising youngsters. The old guard were represented by Frank Clark and John O’Hare. Steve Sutton would go on to keep goal for the first team for much of the decade following Peter Shilton’s eventual departure. Nobody could have imagined that within a year Gary Mills would become the youngest ever player in a European Cup tie and, almost as improbably, the number 6 shirt was worn by one Garry Birtles, who would also taste European glory the following year, but was for now plying his trade in a midfield role.

As usual, the fans getting their weekly Forest fix at the reserve game had to rely for their updates on the senior team’s progress on someone in the vicinity having what was still known at the time as a transistor radio. The scoreboard at the back of the Bridgford End would be updated as goals were scored in the first-team’s match, but the bald scoreline gave no clue as to how the game was going and some fans were not even sure whether the score was given from a Forest point of view or the home team’s. But this was a day when the radios and scoreboard increasingly diverted the spectators’ attention away from the match in front of them, as news of the game at Old Trafford was received with mounting excitement and near disbelief.

The wealth of data available in the information age has not helped jog my memory about the result of that reserve game, but it has enabled me to rediscover the BBC’s Match of the Day coverage of what was to become one of the most famous victories in Forest’s history. So if you haven’t seen it, here’s what you missed.

Whether it’s wishful thinking or respect for Forest’s unexpected rise to the summit of the pre-Christmas League table, the Old Trafford PA system blasts out Queen’s We Are The Champions before the game. The Forest away kit at the time is one of our most fondly remembered because of what the team achieved while wearing it. But the TV footage reminds us that the all-yellow strip was, in fact, a rather amateurish combination of matt pale yellow cotton shirts and shiny, darker yellow nylon shorts. None of which matters in the slightest to anyone with memories of seeing it worn with distinction by John Robertson as he skinned a right-back, Archie Gemmill as he ploughed through the mud, or Larry Lloyd or Kenny Burns as they played whatever combination of man and ball it took to break up an attack.

United start brightly, with Stuart Pearson mis-controlling Gordon Hill’s cross from the left before setting up Sammy McIlroy to shoot wide. Steve Coppell then cuts in from the right wing to drag a tame shot wide. Encouraged, the Stretford End burst into a chant of “United! United! United!”. Predictably for the 1970s, this is met with muted replies of “Shit! Shit! Shit!” from the Reds packed into the Scoreboard End, followed by louder yells of “Forest! Forest! Forest!”

Forest’s new centre back pairing of Burns and David Needham then demonstrate two different aspects of the art of defending. When Pearson flicks Lou Macari’s clearance on to set Coppell free, Burns quickly intercepts and plays the ball safely back to Shilton. Debutant Needham - hastily signed in the wake of Lloyd’s broken toe – then floors Jimmy Greenhoff with a vigorous challenge from behind, for which he receives a yellow card. The home fans faintly, and rather hopefully, chant “Off! Off! Off!”, but these are the days when you have to pretty much commit GBH before a ref will reach for his red card.

The tone of the game changes completely mid-way through the first half. Peter Withe lays Shilton’s drop-kick off to Gemmill. He expertly lifts the ball forward with the outside of his left foot for Tony Woodcock to race onto. Brian Greenhoff misses his kick, Woodcock nips in, rounds Paddy Roche and, from a narrow angle, slides the ball goalwards. It hits the post, but rebounds off the unfortunate Greenhoff and crosses the line. Woodcock celebrates by turning to the Stretford End and making a double clenched fist gesture as if lifting a pair of dumbells.

Pearson limps off to be replaced by Ashley Grimes and the travelling Reds launch into the Forest version of Hey Jude. Shilton saves a stinging shot from Hill from just inside the box, but the home side’s respite is brief and soon Barry Davies is describing Forest as “looking very sprightly and worth their position at the top of the table”.

They prove as much by increasing their lead with one of the finest goals of the season. Left-back Colin Barrett feeds Robertson, who plays a first-time ball inside to Woodcock, who in turn dinks it over Brian Greenhoff and chases it to the corner of the penalty area. He returns the ball to Robertson and heads for the middle of the area while Robertson brings the ball forward to the edge of the box and finds Withe on the six-yard line. He touches it back to Woodcock, who gleefully lashes it into the roof of the net and repeats his gesture to the Stretford End as Withe leaps and punches the air.

With 28 minutes on the clock the game is all but over. The away support is singing the wordless version of the “...we are fucking dynamite” chant that was briefly favoured in the 70s, while the stunned home fans are already resorting to “Man United, we’ll support you ever more”, a chant more usually heard towards the end from fans who realise any flicker of hope of getting anything from the game has finally been extinguished.

A rampant Forest are pressing hard whenever United get the ball and quickly turning defence into attack at every opportunity. The Forest version of Amazing Grace rings around Old Trafford before the Reds waste a golden opportunity to make it 3-0. John McGovern wins a tackle on the edge of the United box and slips the ball to Martin O’Neill, who plays Viv Anderson in on the right hand side of the area. There’s an audible shriek from an alarmed female United fan, but Anderson shoots high across the goal, accompanied by monkey noises from the more hard of thinking of the home support.

As half-time approaches United have possibly their best chance of the game. They are awarded a corner when Shilton smothers the ball and a linesman decides he has taken it over the goal line. In a rare moment of indecision, the Reds’ keeper holds back as he comes for the ball and misses it, but Jimmy Greenhoff, leaping high at the far post, can only head wide.

The second half starts in sleety rain, with an enthusiastic “Come on you yellows” from one end of the ground answered with a half-hearted “Come on you reds” from the other. With the pitch cutting up, the tackles get a bit tastier. O’Neill cuts inside Coppell on the right and as he releases the ball Grimes slides in very late, but no foul is given as O’Neill calmly steps over Grimes’s foot.

Macari typifies United’s lack of confidence by heading weakly straight at Shilton from Jimmy Greenhoff’s cross, then the home fans are audibly frustrated as United inelegantly clear the ball out for a Forest throw-in. Gemmill then wins the ball well in the middle of United’s half and McGovern slides in to play a perfect pass that cuts out Jimmy Nicholl and leaves Robertson clear. He advances and lays the ball past a poorly-positioned Roche towards Woodcock on the six-yard line, but Martin Buchan saves his team with a vital interception.

Forest’s counter-attacking game is again demonstrated to devastating effect after 54 minutes. Burns slides in on Hill outside the Forest area and when Brian Greenhoff shoots straight into the Forest wall Hill chips the ball back towards the penalty area, where Needham rises to head firmly away and set Gemmill free on the right. Not for the first time, Nicholl over-commits himself, allowing Gemmill to run clear. It’s three against one as the yellow shirts burst forward and Gemmill plays the ball to his left to Robertson, who easily rounds Roche and scores in front of the delirious away fans.

This prompts the typical 70s response to a goal conceded, but the Stretford End’s instinctive chorus of “You’re going to get your fucking heads kicked in!” soon peters out and once again it’s the Nottingham voices that are heard, this time announcing “And now you’re gonna believe us, we’re gonna win the league!”

Some neat interplay between Barrett, McGovern and Robertson sees Barrett driving into the United box and his lay-back causes a scramble that ends with McGovern’s shot deflected out for a corner by a combination of Grimes and Roche. A chant of “Four! Four! Four! Four!” rings out from behind the goal, but on this occasion the Reds’ fans’ wish is not fulfilled. They then turn their attention to a burst of the tune from The Vikings (as sung these days by Manchester City’s fans).

It should be four, though, as Robertson easily skins Grimes, his cross is headed out and Anderson breaks forward to meet it. He continues into the box, unchallenged by a static Stewart Houston, before blazing high and wide as Roche comes out to block him.

When McGovern feeds O’Neill on the right, a United defender once again rashly commits himself and the beleagured home side are completely out of shape. O’Neill passes to Gemmill on his left, who in turn finds Robertson, but the winger takes too long trying to round Roche and the relieved keeper is able to smother the ball.

The home fans give up and more and more empty seats appear, while a chant of “We’re Forest, we’re Forest, we are the champions!” resounds from the away end. With two minutes left, Davies begins to sum up the match, purring that “It’s been a very long time since United have looked so inept on their own ground and they’ve been made to look that way by a very good side.”

As he says this, yet another United attack breaks down on the Forest right and McGovern finds Gemmill, who, despite the bobbling of the ball on the rutted pitch,  plays a perfect left-footed pass for Woodcock to run onto down the middle and he confidently slots a left-footed shot past Roche from the edge of the area to finally make it four. Davies continues that this is “no more than they deserve – it could have been many more than four”. When the joyful Reds fans sing “Nottingham Forest are magic, we all agree”, Davies concurs that “it’s a good word for this afternoon’s performance”.

Forest are still chasing and closing down in the final minute (which, as much as the four goals, should have been compulsory viewing for every Reds team of the last twenty years or so). The final action of the game is Grimes mis-hitting a shot well wide from outside the Forest area.

Davies is now free to continue his summary: “Manchester United – buried in their own back yard by a team that has the hallmark of its creator, Brian Clough.  Nottingham Forest have given the best display by a team that I’ve had the privilege of seeing this season.”

This was arguably the best display in Forest’s glory years – and therefore one of the best in the club’s history – and it has become one of those “I was there” games, even if, for me, “there” was the Main Stand, enjoying the amazing news from seventy miles to the north-west with my fellow die-hards at that Central League game. 


Forest: Shilton, Anderson, Barrett, McGovern, Needham, Burns, O'Neill, Gemmill, Withe, Woodcock, Robertson.

A shock defeat, a sending-off and a bloody nose

Forest 0 Mansfield Town 1 
(County Cup Final, City Ground, 4 May 1971; 9,022)

I was born just too late to witness the double-chasing team of 1966-67, fondly remembered to this day and generally accepted as the greatest Forest team of the century and a decade the club spent waiting for Brian Clough to come along. I’m told I was four when I was taken to my first match, which would place it some time in the 1967-68 season, but I was too young to be able to remember it now. By 1971, though, the decline that followed the breaking up of the 66-67 team had meant I had long since got used to attending Forest matches more in hope than expectation.

Following the “Ian Moore gone little” curtain-raiser described elsewhere in these pages, Forest had only won twice more in the League by the end of the year. Better form after Christmas had seen us win eleven more games to finish safely in 16^th place, though we failed to so much as score in our last three games. A home game against third division Mansfield would surely see us retain the County Cup, though, no doubt scoring a few goals along the way. By way of a change – or possibly to save a few of the New Pence the country had been getting used to since February - Dad took Robin and me to stand on the terrace in front of the East Stand.

This was the first time I'd stood to watch football and it turned out to be the first time I'd see violence at a match at close quarters. I can recall very little about the match itself but a solitary Dudley Roberts goal saw a full-strength Forest team lose their grip on the County Cup and right-back Peter Hindley was sent off near the end. Even at the age of seven I realised this wasn’t what was meant to happen. I didn't know much about Mansfield, but I knew they were local (though not as local as County, whose ground we always walked past on our way to the City Ground) and from a lower division, so I knew we really shouldn't be losing to them. And if I hadn’t known that Forest hadn’t had a player sent off since the war, it’s a fair bet that Dad would have pointed this out to me. 

Other than Roberts’ and Hindley’s footnotes in the history of the County Cup, my only other recollection is that towards the end of the game a youth standing near us was given a bloody nose for no reason that was obvious to us. However uninspiring the game was I was no doubt absorbed in it, hoping against hope we would find an equaliser from somewhere. I was vaguely aware of the youth standing in front of us at the bottom of the terrace exchanging comments with one or two other youths. The next thing we knew blood was pouring from his nose from a single punch, without so much as a raised voice from either puncher or punchee. Shortly afterwards, the game ended and the home fans trudged off, leaving the Stags and their supporters to celebrate. We never knew if the incident was to do with the match or entirely unrelated.

Hooliganism had begun to be a problem for the English game in the late 60s. There was no formal segregation in the ground in those days, but away fans usually had the sense to avoid the Trent End, in which Forest’s most boisterous fans could pack a considerable vocal and, occasionally, physical punch. Once in a while a foolhardy visiting fan would try to ‘take’ the home end or a fight might even break out between two Reds. The apparently tightly-packed terrace would then part and close ranks again in time with the combatants scrapping up and down the terrace in an almost cartoon-like blur of flailing limbs. With or withour police intervention the altercation would be over almost as soon as it had started and all eyes would turn back to the action on the pitch.

More often the trouble would occur outside the ground. Dad used to park on Queen’s Road or Station Street, so our walk from or back to the car would occasionally be accompanied by skirmishes when Forest fans heading for the city centre clashed with away fans making for the station. Dad would hastily shepherd us out of harm’s  way and back to the car, fervently hoping the post-match traffic wouldn’t mean we were caught up in the aggro again as the combatants neared the station.

The walk north into the city from Trent Bridge goes through the Meadows, which could be quite a battle-ground in those days. The area was in the process of being redeveloped and for any passing hooligans there was a plentiful supply of bricks from demolished houses or those about to replace them. On one occasion, we saw some cocksure Tottenham hooligans swaggering into the Meadows from the direction of Trent Bridge, only to turn back abruptly (you could almost add your own soundtrack of squealing brakes) at the sight of their Forest counterparts charging back at them from the direction of the station. I can still see the look of shock on the face of the ringleader of the Tottenham gang as he realised he was first in the line of fire. Another time we witnessed a police car doing an excellent impression of a sheepdog, rounding up a gaggle of miscreant youths in what was either a school playground or an empty company car park and encouraging them to disperse in an orderly fashion.

There wasn’t always trouble by any means, but it was common enough that the mere possibility of something kicking off could make the fifteen-minute walk back to the car seem something of a risky undertaking. The bloody nose on the East Stand terrace that night was a violent shock to the system of a sheltered seven-year-old, but the metaphorical bloody nose the Stags dealt Forest and the humiliation of seeing a player dismissed upset me more.


Forest: Barron, Hindley, Winfield, Chapman, O'Kane, Fraser, Jackson (Robertson), Richardson, McKenzie, Cormack, Rees.