Nott-so funny!

The Mick Harford and Tony Coton partnership started tonight with the unenviable trip to high flyers Nottingham Forest, the Lofty Heights crew were there to witness the events unfold in front of us.

After hearing the news that Wayne Routledge had left the club for Newcastle United, tonight’s gang of Jenson, Sam, Justin, Jack and myself were in slightly less optimistic moods and were left feeling pretty puzzled as to what was going on at our club and begun to wonder who may be next out the door and who the next loan signing will be, disillusionment has definitely started to affect the fans, so who knows what it is doing to the management team and the players.
The news that Crystal Palace had gone into administration broke as we were on the road, this meant that the R’s jumped up a place in the table before a ball was kicked in anger.
Inside the ground we met up with our Welsh friends Richard, Sophie and Dan.

Mick Harford made two changes from the side that drew 2-2 at Blackpool at the weekend. Nigel Quashie and Matt Hill, two new signings this week, came in for the two players that have departed the club in the last 24 hours, Patrick Agyemang and Wayne Routledge.


Nottingham Forest started the game the better of the two sides and if I’m honest they completely controlled the opening 45 minutes.
Forest were freely passing the ball around without feeling too much pressure from the R’s defenders or midfielders. The chances soon came but were not taken as McKenna fired wildly shot hide and wide.
Disaster struck on 19 minutes. Forest were awarded what looked to be a very soft free kick just outside the Rangers’ penalty area. As Rob Earnshaw placed the ball on the floor I turned to Richard and said “U watch this now, 1-0, top right hand corner”. Earnshaw stepped up and placed his shot into the top right hand corner, I wish I never predicted it!! 1-0 Forest and Lee Camp started celebrating in front of the R’s fans that had given him a good reception at the start of the game.
Just two minutes later and it was 2-0!
Quashie was dispossessed in the centre of midfield and Forest swept thru the R’s with some slick passing. The final pass was to Earnshaw and he made no mistake as he netted with a powerful shot into the bottom left corner. Camp this time decided to start celebrating like he had just won the World Cup and annoyed many of the travelling supporters. I think it’s safe to say that he lost a lot of the R’s fans that continued to back him when he left.
Forest were in complete control and Rangers’ didn’t even pose any threat to Camp’s goal until 27 minutes as Adel Taarabt tamely shot at goal.
Unfortunately that was the best moment of the half for the away fans as we started to sing our own songs and try to at least enjoy our time in Nottingham. I will shed some light on them a little later on as I try to end this report on a more positive note.
Carl Ikeme made his first real save of the evening on 30 minutes as Majewski fired a cracking shot on goal and Ikeme parried the ball into the air before gathering up at the second attempt.
32 minutes were on the clock as Forest were given the chance to make it 3-0.
Earnshaw turned in the box and was tripped by Gorkss, referee Ilderton pointed to the spot, although it looked soft from where we were sitting(it would be nice to see the replay of the challenge). Former R’s striker Dexter Blackstock stepped up and buried the penalty and he toned his celebration somewhat, nice to see someone didn’t milk it in the moment.
Luckily no more goals were conceded in the final 10 minutes of the half but what we witnessed really was not pretty at all!



Half time saved us from further humiliation and the main topic of discussion was at what time we were going to leave in the second half. We agreed that we should leave on 4-0 or if there was no improvement in the first 20minutes of the second half.

Harford made two changes at half time. Faurlin and Stewart came off and were replaced by Ephraim and Ramage.
It took a matter of seconds for Rangers’ to have their first telling shot on goal. Taarabt squared the ball to Quashie but his effort went straight at Camp.
Four minutes into the half and goal number four was chalked up.
Cohen, who scored in the same fixture last year, received the ball 35yards from goal and was given acres of space. Cohen let rip from 20yards out, Ikeme got a hand to it but unfortunately he seemed to mis-judge the flight of the ball and he could only palm the ball into the back of the net.
It was at this time that Richard, Sophie and Dan left and let’s face it who could blame them!
At this time the R’s fans were sarcastically cheering every pass we made and even started singing “it’s just like watching Brazil”

I will now list three of the songs that I can remember being sung in the hope it’ll cheer you up after only hearing doom and gloom before I then tell you about how we went 5-0 down.
“If you can’t borrow money Borrowdale, if you can’t borrow money Borrowdale, if you can’t borrow money, can’t borrow money Borrowdale”.
“There’s only one Peter Ramage, one Peter Ramage, walking along, singing a song, living in a Ramage wonderland”.
But the best one of all from the evening has to be :-
“We’ve lost that scoring feeling, wooaahhh that scoring feeling. We’ve lost that scoring feeling and now it’s gone gone gone wooaaaahhhhhhhhhhh”.

Now it’s back to the action, well when I say action I mean the last piece of action we saw, Forest’s fifth goal.
Good work down the Forest left and a neat through ball into the R’s penalty area led to Forest having two efforts cleared off the line but the ball dribbled to Perch who was following up to slide home from an acute angle.

We can view this game from two different perspectives. Forest really did look comfortable and put in a good shift tonight. Their finishing was clinical and really did make Rangers’ look like a struggling mid table team. On the other hand Rangers’ were poor and didn’t pressure or get in the faces of Forest at all. A very bad day at the office and I really hope the players got a real roasting at the end of the game because performances like that cannot be tolerated.
Harford has come out and said that we need a striker after tonight’s game, well hopefully two will come in and the players will put in some effort on the training ground before Saturday’s game against Scunthorpe.

All that remains is for our Man of the Match to be named. As no-one on the field is worthy of the award and us having 693 fantastic travelling fans in attendance, I am going to go with Jenson’s suggestion that the 693 fans should be our Man/Woman/Child of the Match. I wish that our fans were like that for every game!

Nottingham Forest: Camp, Perch, Morgan (Chambers 72), Wilson, Anderson (Tyson 70), Earnshaw, Cohen, Gunter, McKenna, Blackstock (Adebola 80), Majewski.

Subs not used: Smith, McGugan, McGoldrick, Moussi.

Goals: Earnshaw (19 & 21), Blackstock (32), Cohen (49), Perch (78)

QPR: Ikeme, Stewart (Ramage 46), Leigertwood, Buzsaky, Gorkss, Quashie, Connolly, Faurlin (Ephraim 46), Hill, Simpson (Vine 70), Taarabt.

Subs not used: Cerny, Hall, Cook, German.

Bookings: Buzsaky, Taarabt, Quashie

Referee: Mr E Ilderton

Attendance: 23, 293 (Away: 693)