Nottingham Forest

The club was founded in 1865 at the Clinton Arms on Shakespeare Street. The first official game was in 1866 and the first league game was in 1870. They entered the FA Cup for the first time in 1878-79 but were rejected by the Football League

Forest played in the Football Alliance in 1889 and won the competition in 1892. Promoted to the Premier League they moved into City Ground, on the banks of the River Trent, in 1898. They beat rivals Derby County 3-1 to win the 1898 FA Cup Final replay at Crystal Palace.

Forest were relegated in 1906 despite Grenvlle Morris leading the team in scoring, as he did for five straight seasons. They won the Second Division in 1906-07 and immediately went back up. Nottingham Forest went back down in 1911 and finished in last place in 1914. The club may have gone bankrupt or been kicked out of the Football League were it not for World War I.

After the war, the First Division expanded and Forest stayed in the second tier. They won the title in 1921-22 and got promoted back to the top. But that stay lasted just three seasons and by 1925 they were back in the Second Division.

Forest was relegated out of the Second Division for the first time ever in 1949. The 1950-51 season was explosive for Forest with 110 goals scored and a Second Division title. They were back in the First Division six years later under manager Billy Walker. Forest won the 1958-59 FA Cup with a semifinal win over Aston Villa and a title win over Luton Town.

Forest were runners up for the First Division title in 1966-67, losing out to Manchester United. But five years later they were back in the Second Division and went through three managers in the next season.

Things changed in January 1975 when Forest hired Biran Clough, fresh off a 44-day stint as Leeds United manager. Clough had won the Football League for rivals Derby County and brought a few of their players with him. Forest went from 16th place in 1975 to eighth in 1976 when assistant Peter Taylor rejoined Clough on the touchline.

With a handful of new signings, Clough and Taylor led Nottingham Forest to the Anglo-Scottish Cup and a third-place finish in the Second Division in 1977, good enough for promotion.

Back in the First Division, Nottingham signed Kenny Burns and Peter Shilton, the latter as the largest fee ever paid for a goalkeeper at the time. They didn’t lose a league game after November and won the 1977-78 Football League title. This still stands as the last time a team has won the top tier in the year after promotion from the second tier.

They also won the 1978 Football League Cup, 1-0 over Liverpool and qualified for the European Cup. They started the 1978-79 season with a FA Charity Shield trouncing of Ipswich Town, 5-0. They beat Liverpool to start their European Cup run and pushed the league unbeaten streak to 42 before falling to Liverpool. That record stood until 2004 when Arsenal went 49 straight league games without a loss.

In 1979, Taylor agreed to pay £1 million for Birmingham City’s Trevor Francis, the first ever £1 million transfer fee in English football. They beat Malmo 1-0 in Munich to win the 1979 European Cup on a goal by Francis. They won the League Cup over Southampton but finished second in the league behind Liverpool.

Forest won the 1979 Super Cup over Barcelona 2-1 on aggregate. They lost the 1980 League Cup Final to Wolves but won the European Cup again. Forest repeated by beating Ajax in the semifinals and Hamburg in the final.

The European magic ran out as forest lost the 1980 Super Cup to Valencia and then were knocked out of the 1980-81 Cup by CSKA Sofia in the first round. The team started selling off players but still stayed in the race for trophies. They finished third in 1987-88 and lost in the FA Cup semifinals. Clough again lifted the League Cup with a 1989 finals win over Luton Town.

Tragedy struck Forest and Liverpool before the 1989 FA Cup semifinal. Known as the Hillsborough disaster, nearly 100 fans were killed in a stampede and the game was abandoned after six minutes. Forest eventually lost the replay 3-1 and also finished thor in league play.

Forest won the 1990 League Cup, repeating for the second time. They lost the 1991 FA Cup final to Tottenham on an own goal. Forest paid £2.1 million to add Teddy Sheringham from Millwall for the 1991-92 season. They lost the League Cup to Manchester United in a bid to three-peat. Forest finished eighth in the final season of the First Division and became founding members of the Premier League.

They played in the first ever Premier League game to be televised live and won 1-0 over Liverpool on a goal by Sheringham. But Sheringham moved to Spurs a week later and Nottingham was one of the first teams relegated from the Premier League. Clough resigned at the end of the season and Roy Keane was sold to Manchester United for a then-British record £3.75 million.

Former player Frank Clark took over as manager and the team was runners-up in newly named Division One to return to the Premier League. They got third in the Premier League in 1994-95 and qualified for the UEFA Cup. They made the quarterfinals of the 1995-96 UEFA Cup but were relegated in 1997 with three managers during the season.

Again they came right back up after one season, but just for one season. They didn’t finish in the top 10 in the next three seasons and faced financial troubles in 2001. They made it to the playoffs in 2003 but lost to Sheffield United. Forest continued to struggle for the next two years and after avoiding it once, fell into the third division in 2005.

The 2005-06 was their first in the third tier in 54 years and they became the first European Cup champions to ever fall into their domestic third tier. They finished seventh that season and lost in the playoffs the next year. They won promotion in 2008 and moved into the top three of the Championship in 2010 before losing in the playoffs.

They lost in the playoffs again in 2011 and owner Nigel Doughty passed away in February 2012. Kuwaiti ownership purchased the team in the summer of 2012 with the Al-Hasawi family in charge. Former player Stuart Pearce returned as manager in 2014 but was fired in 2015. The team kept cycling through managers and mid-table finishes before being sold to Evangelos Marinakis in May 2017.
They finished 17th in 2017-18 and had two managers in the next season while finishing seventh. They had two more subpar seasons before hiring Steve Cooper in September 2021. The team moved up to seventh place by Christmas and made the playoffs for the first time in 11 years. Forest beat Sheffield United in the semifinals on penalties and beat Huddersfield Town 1-0 at Wembley Stadium to return to the Premier League for the first time since the 1998-99 season.

Nottingham Forest has a major rivalry with Derby County, though the East Midlands Derby no longer impacts the Premier League standings. They also have regional rivalries with Leicester City, Sheffield United and Notts County. Only the matchup against Leicester City will impact the 2022-23 Premier League standings and odds.