I thought of a few notes on Nottingham Forest to mark the club's place in the FA Cup today. Inevitably local rivals County must be included.
Just for information, here are the populations for our conurbations and their (core cities).
- London – 10,979,000: Greater Manchester – 2,727,000 (553,000): Birmingham 1,145,000: Leeds-Bradford – 1,890,000: Glasgow – 1,259,000 (593,000): Southampton-Portsmouth – 924,000: Liverpool – 905,000 (492,000): Newcastle – 815,000 (296,000): Leeds 789,000: Nottingham – 785,000: Sheffield 580,000: Bradford -532,000: Bristol – 680,000: Belfast – 635,000: Leicester – 550,000: Edinburgh – 530,000: Bristol – 466,000: Sunderland – 276,000: Wolverhampton – 265,000.
- Populations, these days, don't make much difference to football clubs' success but of course there was a connection in the past, especially with limited transport facilities.
- Nottingham supports two league clubs; County, a club that sits outside the Nottingham Urban boundary and therefore is in the county of Nottinghamshire AND Forest whose name derives from The Forest Football Club, which emerged from a group of “shinney” (shinty) players who played a popular game (at the time!), very similar to hockey.
- Notts County's first known colours were amber and black hooped shirts, dating from the 1870s. This was followed by short spells playing in amber, then chocolate and blue halves. In 1890, the club adopted black and white striped shirts, and have played in these colours for most of the rest of their history.
- The "County" club, founded in 1862, is regarded as the World's oldest professional club, a founder member of the Football League and which inspired Juventus to form and to wear black and white stripes.
- The Turin club derived its famous black-and-white striped kits from Notts County and has played in those colours since 1903. Originally, they played in pink shirts with a black tie, which only occurred due to the wrong shirts being sent to them, the father of one of the players made the earliest shirts, but continual washing faded the colour so much that in 1903 the club sought to replace them. Juventus asked one of their team members, Englishman John Savage, if he had any contacts in England who could supply new shirts in a colour that would better withstand the elements. He had a friend who lived in Nottingham, who being a Notts County supporter, shipped out the black and white striped shirts to Turin Juve have worn the shirts ever since, considering the colours to be aggressive and powerful.
- Nottingham Forest was founded in 1865, at a special meeting at the Clinton Arms Hotel, Sherwood Street in the city. Since their first appearances were made at the Forest Recreation Ground, their chosen name was synonymous with the location.
- At this venue, innovative Forest were the first team ever to use shinguards, in 1874, and in a home match versus "Sheffield Norfolk" in 1878, a whistle was first used as an aid to controlling the game, quickly replacing the previous method of the referee waving a white flag.
- J. S. Scrimshaw's proposal to play football, instead of shinney, was agreed and Nottingham Forest Football Club was formed. It was agreed at the same meeting that the club would purchase twelve tasselled caps coloured 'Garibaldi Red' (named after the leader of the Italian "Redshirts" freedom fighters). Thus the club's official colours were established.
- Forest's first ever official game was played against Notts County taking place on 22 March 1866.
- In their early years Forest was a multi-sports club, for as well as their roots in shinty, Forest's baseball club was British Champions in 1899. Forest's charitable approach helped clubs like Liverpool, Arsenal and Brighton and Hove Albion to form. In 1886, Forest donated a set of football kits to help Arsenal establish themselves – the North London team still wear red. Forest also donated shirts to Everton and helped Brighton secure a site to play on.
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