A Fleeting Thing – Gareth Watts

As someone who works in Leicester and who sees the ‘2016 Champions’ newspaper pull-outs pinned to colleagues’ noticeboards yellowing like jaundice on a daily basis, I’m all too aware that success in football is a fleeting thing.

Standing in applause to commemorate Cloughie on Saturday, it was a reminder of our own moment in the sun. Yet, actually, unlike Leicester, it wasn’t just a moment – it was a period of domestic and international dominance; an irresistible rise from second division makeweights to first division and League Cup champions and then on to become double European Cup winners. We remembered not a season, but an era and, of course, the genius who (alongside Peter Taylor) orchestrated it all. A great man and great times.

Yet the problem with nostalgia is just that: like all words ending in -algia (algos – the Greek for pain) it’s an ache, in this case it’s a longing for something that’s gone and can’t come back. And so it is heartening to reflect that on Saturday we could look back but also take pleasure in the here and now. Those lucky enough to get a ticket to get on board one of Forza Garibaldi’s Trent booze cruise vessels (‘Garry Boatles’, ‘Radi Majetski’, ‘Alfe-Dinghy Haaland’, ‘Chris Barge Williams’ or ‘Spencer Weir Gonna Need a Bigger Boat Daley’), reminded us all that it’s a right old laugh to be a Forest fan now, that we have a culture and a fanbase (27,500 turning up in the rain to see Rotherham?) to be proud of already.

Over the previous seven days, our current crop of players seem to have got in on the act of living in the moment too. A draw and clean sheet away at newly-relegated Swansea, a classy victory against Sheffield Wednesday where, finally, the big money signings got on the score sheet and allayed a very specific type of fear I’m going to refer to as ‘the Silenzis’, and to a further three points on Saturday – glamorous? No. Determined? Definitely. Indeed, it’s starting to feel weird as a Forest fan to get to the 80 minute mark and think ‘don’t panic, a goal will come’.

Plenty has been said already about the mercurial Carvalho and the gradual emergence of Grabban as the talisman we were all hoping for. So I’d like to draw attention to our pair of Jacks. I wondered aloud on Wednesday how it would be to feel love as strong as the love Colback has for a fifty-fifty. In fact, there were times midweek when he dived into twenty-eighties and emerged with the ball. If I were given the job of choosing which loan moves to make permanent, our ginger ninja would be at the top of my list. Jack Robinson too, has shown a grit and confidence down the left side that brings a sense of balance to the team we’ve been lacking for a while and as fans we can have faith that he’ll battle and give everything in his part of the pitch.

So we’ve had a great week and we’re four points away from the top of the league. There won’t be a commemorative newspaper pull-out (unless the Post gets really desperate) but we need to enjoy it all the same. Who knows, next year’s boats could reference a legendary figure from 2018 … if only there were a nautical pun to be made from our current manager’s surname.

 

Gareth Watts (@tokyobeatbox)