Bolton Wanderers at the CG

Not much to say, really. This promised to be our first really tough game of the season.  Against a team who finished last season strongly and, using parachute payments, had strengthened in the summer. Their manager Dougie Freedman was on our books between 1998-2001 playing, in all, 83 times and scoring 23 goals.

Before the game he made some pointless comments regarding the way we had strengthened our team during this transfer window, completely ignoring his own spending. As it turned out, on the evidence of this game, Billy Davies had spent more wisely!

To me, we scored with one of the first kicks of the game, but apparently it was after 2 minutes. Jamie Mackie completely demolishing the back four of Bolton and their offside trap to run through and score a delightful goal at the Bridgford End.

After this, we dominated the first half, but never ran away with it. However, Bolton were feeling the pressure because a few niggly fouls crept into their game. Fouls, sadly which were not officially countenanced by Mr Haywood, who either missed them or was intent on letting nothing get in the way of a flowing game. Things got really heated towards half time. Reidy seemed to have been targeted and two bad fouls on him led to two yellow cards for Kamara and Spearing. Then Guedioura was smashed around the face by Pratley, a stupid foul which was to have more repercussions later. Just moments later Pratley again pulled Reid back and the Forest man, annoyed at once again being denied a foul by Mr Haywood, rushed over to Kamara and kicked him from behind, earning a booking, which could have been so much worse. The referee was heartily booed off the field at half time shortly after this for a rather pathetic display of refereeing, which resulted in him almost losing control of the game during the last part of the half.

Both teams appeared to have calmed down during the half time interval. Forest soon scored a second and, apart from a couple of odd forays down field, Bolton were given the run around. Eventually Pratley upended Cohen and was given his marching orders. It was then just one way traffic, Forest scored a third, could have had more and came out with a convincing 3-0 win. The game was also noteworthy for the appearance of the mysterious Abdoun. Signed from Olympiacos during the transfer window, he had not been given a squad number nor been mentioned in the squad list on the first programme of the season and fans were beginning to doubt his existence.

This game was sandwiched in between helping with preparations for our village Country Fayre on the Friday and running the coconut shy on the Sunday. The weather was fine, the visitors many and fun was has by all. A typical country occasion, except we couldn't have the ploughing match this year because the spuds hadn't been lifted.

Back to the football. I find it hard to restrain my enthusiasm, the season has begun so well and we are all looking forward to a successful campaign, but this is football and, more especially, Nottingham Forest, so anything could be around the corner. Watford and Wigan, both away, are coming up next in our very tough opening set of fixtures. These two games are potentially among our toughest of the season, so it will be interesting to see how Billy and the team set about the task.

In my quest for My 92, I shall be visiting Northampton, M K Dons and Stevenage on my way to Watford. My routine needed a bit of rejigging when Sky belatedly decided to televise the Watford game, setting it back to the Sunday. Not too much of a problem, however, I just reversed the schedule I had planned.

The Wigan game includes visits to Liverpool, Everton, Tranmere and Shrewsbury. Sky have again intervened, not with our game, but have put Liverpool back to Sunday. So my nice quiet Sunday stroll through Liverpool has been disrupted, but if I go early enough I should miss the crowds. Also I believe the Liverpool fans, besides being very knowledgeable are also all locally based, unlike Man U, so most will probably arrive on foot or by bike making it easy to navigate my way through in my motor car.