We fall prey to a Pride of Lions

A week since the last match, but a week is a long time in football, as Harold Wilson once famously said. Well, maybe not quite. Last week we were floundering about, managerless with seemingly no one wanting the job. Then up stepped a hero from the past, Stuart Pearce, late of England U21's, to offer himself for the job, Psycho himself no less, 12 years as a player who famously ate wingers for breakfast and helped Ted McMinn into orbit.(though later, to show the softer side of the guy, he played in McMinn's testimonial , and even wore a Derby shirt, after the former Derby player had had health problems). And, after discussions, Pearce took the job. He has personal problems to sort out and business commitments that he feels duty bound to honour, so will take the job from 1st July. The media are making much out of this time lag, but I don't feel it to be a problem. Fawaz couldn't get or didn't want any manager currently out of work to take the job, so we would have had to wait until the summer anyway to take advantage of the managerial merry-go-round. Plus, some of the high-profile managers waiting for a job will be waiting for a Premier League offer before considering a Championship club in disarray. And, I understand from the interviews given that he wanted someone with Nottingham Forest connections to become our next manager and no one comes with more credentials in that respect.

And on Thursday the official announcement was made. Gary Brazil will continue until the end of the season as interim manager. Meanwhile Psycho will use the time to build up a backroom staff and give Fawaz a list of players he wants in and out of the club. Mention was made regarding the recruitment of staff and Stuart replied that he couldn't talk about that aspect of his plans as some in his thoughts were already employed at other clubs. More chance for rumour and suspicion; starved of news from the CG because of the Billy ban, the media go all out for criticism of anything to do with NFFC. The media and fans forums are rife with innuendo at the moment regarding all aspects of the appointment, but I'm sure that will settle down as things become clear and more interesting football tittle-tattle elsewhere turns the media heads. And it just has. Hughton has been sacked as Norwich manager with five games to go and attention turns to that club leaving us to gently roll into the season's sunset.

So Stuart Pearce was absent from the picture for the visit of Millwall FC to the CG for a vital game for both teams. They needed a win, being in the relegation zone and perilously close to being too far away from safety as games run out, whilst our fading season needed a lift, mainly to keep close to the playoffs if not actually in the top 6, but also to raise the players and fans morale which is at rock bottom at the moment even after a better performance at Ipswich and the appointment of our legend.

I left home in bright sunshine and headed for Nottingham. The clouds gathered as I got closer to the promised land, surely not a portent for the day ahead. I had left home slightly earlier than normal because I had read, well, actually just glanced at, an item in the Official Site of the Reds, that there was to be a roadshow type event, regarding the coming World Cup, in the car park at the CG. I wandered round to the Megastore and the main reception area thinking this might be one place where such an event would be taking place. But no one had heard of such a plan. Disappointed, I made my way around to the other side of the ground and my usual spot high up in the Brian Clough Stand. Blow me, when I got to the back of the BC there it was.
Like a sort of travelling fair, a couple of stands unfolded out of the back of a couple of transit vans with a few lads running it who were obviously having a ball, going round the UK at the expense of a tyre company who were taking advantage of their part in the sponsorship of the World Cup to puff their product around the country as cheaply as possible. A model of the mascot, whose name is Fuleco, stands in a tyre on the back of one of the vans.

Fuleco is based on the Brazilian three-banded armadillo (I kid you not) who is thought to be an appealing character representing 'Brazil', 'Nature', 'Friendly' and 'Passion for Football'. Actually as I stood looking at him he represented none of these things, but who am I when ranged against none other than Thierry Weil, FIFA Marketing Director, who reckons Fuleco is "fast becoming the most successful World Cup mascot of all time". Even more famous and successful than World Cup Willy?

Prior to the match we were treated to the al Hasawi family emerging from the tunnel and coming on to the pitchside. Fawaz's mother was apparently seeing her first game at the CG. I'll bet she's sorry she chose this match to come here for the first time.  Other visitors to the CG were the Notts CCC team who won the FB40 Cup last summer and they paraded their trophy during half time. The cricket season proper starts very soon and it only seems five minutes since it ended.  Shows how busy and wrapped up in the football I have been during the last seven months.

The game quickly brought me down to earth. Two things rapidly became clear. We had not carried the passion or the football skills over from the Ipswich match and the referee was having a howler. Our first half performance did not warrant any sort of reward, but all this was overshadowed by the appalling decisions of the ref. It would be pointless to try and detail in print how bad his efforts at interpreting the Laws of the Game were, but he started to become the chief character in the game instead of the shadowy figure keeping order. And he appeared to enjoy his notoriety by smiling and nodding when 20,000 fans were using choice epithets to describe his performance. Beware if Mark Brown should darken the door of your ground, unless he is on your side, of course. I'm not suggesting he is biassed, just that his incompetence seemed to extend to more lenient treatment of one side's indiscretions than the other, if he actually saw them, that is.

The first half was eminently forgettable, though, sadly, I can't forget it. We had a few chances, but Millwall scored from their's whereas we did not really get close to a goal with our weak attacks. Their first was a sort of shot/cross/futile effort when you can't think of anything else to do, which cannoned of Jara past the despairing Darlow and into the bottom corner of the goal. Their second was the goal of a player who scores from this sort of shot once a season, if that, because during a ten year career, Martin had scored just 13 goals before today. Lee Martin had a spell at Forest some time ago whilst on loan from Manchester United. He scored his one and only goal for us from much the same position (though at the Bridgford End) as he did for Millwall yesterday. It was a blinder. And I'll bet he hasn't scored another like that until yesterday. In fact he was so excited he ran the length of the pitch back to the away fans and attempted to jump into the stands and embrace a startled Lions fan, or perhaps it was his Dad. Anyway, the club threatened with relegation were 2-0 up and looking good for the points. Their 625 fans ecstatic and who could blame them?

During his several interviews in the week before this game, Brazil had mentioned that some of our injured first-teamers were about ready to return to action. During the first half Greg Halford had a mixed time. He collided with one of the TV cameras seemingly injuring his side and then suffered a head injury in a collision with his own goalie and the opposition centre forward. He was subbed on 40 minutes with Kelvin Wilson taking his place to thunderous applause. Not that we were all pleased to see Halford leave, I for one was applauding more for the return of our classy defender than for the departure of our utility man. I think Halford gets unwarranted stick from some of our support. He is tall, slightly gawky because of this height and he has a languid style which many see as lack of effort. I think him to be a quality footballer who always tries his hardest and is certainly not the worst player in the Garibaldi this season.

And at half time Raddi Majewski was substituted. In his place came Henri Lansbury who took the field to rapturous applause. A key figure in our earlier games, a dynamic attacking midfielder,  he too has been out for some time with, like Wilson, a back injury. His appearance and, no doubt some choice words in the dressing room at half time, galvanised our approach. Millwall were on the back foot and stayed that way for the whole half, not to say they didn't have chances, but they were penned back into their own half for much of the time. Forest, though, only managed one goal for all the effort. Paterson again headed the goal  and for a small player who easily gets pushed off the ball (weight training in the summer for Jamie I think) his ability to get his head to the ball in the penalty area is quite impressive. The cross came in from Harding, squaring the ball across goal from the left edge of the penalty area with Paterson nodding it into the far corner.. Lansbury was booked by the ref in the middle of the half after shouting at him once too often, presumably because he was frustrated by the incompetence of the referee. And Peltier was booked right on time for something, but no one around me at the match or on the forums afterwards could actually work out what that something was.

2-1 to Millwall and I think a fair result, though a hard one to take, because all week all I have heard from the Forest camp is that all is not lost, let's roll up our sleeves and get the job done and then we get that rather tame effort. Anyway, I confess I have more or less accepted that we will finish as also-rans after starting the season with such high hopes.

On to Sheffield Wednesday on Tuesday with more hope in my heart.