Archive for 2012

Me Owd Duck on Standing on the Spot

by , April 19, 2012
I do like good hospitality and there comes a time in every one’s life that facilities become really important. Hospitality is something Nottingham Forest do very well. I also have a love of legends. So to stand on that spot, just before kick off on a Saturday afternoon, at the home of Nottingham Forest, my home, the place where legends have stood and then turn and shout ‘Get into ’em lads’ from the centre circle at the likes of Raddy, Moussi, Dex, was for a Forest fan, well it was me smiling from ear to ear for days afterwards [...]

The Ballad of Seven-Three

by , March 23, 2012
It was a dull and dreary night But not one week before When ’gainst opponents dressed in white The Forest failed to score Nor even make a half a chance To satisfy their fans And stood as if put in a trance To lose against the Rams [...]

Me Owd Duck on ‘Nobody Ever Says Thank You’

by , March 13, 2012
Clough biographies have tended to be personal recollections by journalists who knew or were used by the great man at the time like Duncan Hamilton or Tony Francis. Wilson is a reporter from Sunderland who now writes for the Guardian and this claims to be the first full biography of Clough from birth to death. It is a monumental and scholarly work, some 550 pages long, and Forest fans have to read through 350 pages before Nottingham is mentioned other than when Clough scored a hat trick at the City Ground as a player [...]

Innocent bystanders

by , March 7, 2012
In my last contribution to LTLF, a call for a bit of pragmatism from the fans in the face of difficult circumstances, I made the bold statement, ‘I don’t think Southampton will find us an easy game on Saturday.’ And what goes and happens? A pathetic 3-0 defeat at home, as easy as they come for the Saints. After that I haven’t dared write again for fear of jinxing things any more, but last night really was a worst-case-scenario result and nothing to do with my ramblings, so I think it’s safe to venture out into public again [...]

Me Owd Duck on Larry Lloyd’s book

by , February 23, 2012
Larry Lloyd's Hard Man: Hard Game is one of the best accounts of Forest's golden years that I have read. I think Lloyd benefits hugely from having a female ghost writer. At the risk of being sexist, it just allows one of the hardest men I have ever met to admit to all sorts of things that I am not sure he would if he'd have played it safe and used a male sports journalist to help him write the book [...]