Football crisis leaves Forest and rivals facing unthinkable: support each other
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Your support makes all the difference.Almost 22 years on from a second successive triumph in the European Cup, Nottingham Forest Football Club faced up yesterday to the greatest ignominy of its fall from grace: the prospect of merger with its lowly neighbour, Notts County.
There has never been much love lost between these two old clubs, divided by just 500 yards of tarmac and the river Trent. County fans boast of 164 years of history (more than any other club in Britain) and the little-known fact that Juventus of Italy changed their club strip from red to black and white stripes after seeing the Notts County colours in the 1900s.
But Forest fans of a certain age boast of greater – and certainly more recent – success. So much so that envious fans of Second Division County are known to loathe Forest considerably more than they actually like their own team.
But the fall-out from the ITV Digital fiasco, which threatens to deprive Forest and County of imminent windfalls of £6m and £600,000 respectively, has forced them to think the unthinkable.
Derek Pavis, a self-made local heating and plumbing merchant who has just sold County, uttered the heresy that merger may be the only way ahead. A ground share is now a certainty, he believes. And all because a group of metropolitan broadcasters reneged on a deal to acquire the rights to Nationwide League football. Of course, what might be standard commercial wisdom in any other industry just doesn't work with football. Witness the views from the South Bank Bar on the river, a fans' pub equidistant from the two clubs but viewed with suspicion by County because the landlord is "red-hot Forest".
"Merge the clubs if you want," said 32-year-old Steve Willans, imbibing with 30 others, "as long as you call the new one Forest".
Paul White, a 28-year-old call centre manager, concurred. "The other lot have missed all the long coach trips to European grounds. Can't blame them for being bitter," he said.
The clubs know as much. The Forest manager, Paul Hart, merely grinned at the proposal, as he indulged autograph hunters during a lunchtime kickaround with his staff among the wheelie bins beneath the ITV Digital camera gantries on the club park.
County, now owned by Albert Scardino – American journalist, businessman and husband of the Pearson chief executive, Marjorie – said getting fans to agree would represent "a difficult marriage".
Selling one of the two grounds appears to offer even less hope, since it would raise £5m at best – the cost of one First Division centre forward. Both clubs are already far deeper in debt than that. Forest have debts of £10m-plus, and losses of £100,000 a week. Shares in the club are currently suspended after the decision not to publish accounts last year.
County narrowly avoided going into administration a fortnight ago and it is rumoured they are being kept solvent only by Mr Pavis, who has not yet asked for the return of £4m he is owed.
For Forest fans, losing ITV's money is nothing compared to the pain of losing the player they knew as "JJ", Jermaine Jenas, to Newcastle United earlier this season. Jenas had become club captain at the age of 18 but was sold for £5m to stave off creditors. For the same reason, County lost a brilliant Jermaine of their own (Pennant, to Arsenal).
"It doesn't hurt us any more. We've been in this mess so long," said 73-year-old David Golf, walking his dog near Notts County's Meadow Lane ground.
Broader concerns about the effect on the city were expressed by the local MP, Alan Simpson, whose Nottingham South constituency includes Forest's home, the City Ground. He said: "Football passions are more muted here than in some cities but Forest's glory days did the same kind of things for our image that [the late steel magnate] Jack Walker did for Blackburn." Mr Simpson said the crisis may at least force football to rethink the way cash is distributed between the Premiership and lower league clubs.
In the South Bank Bar, the potential loss of the ITV Digital sports channel was almost a blessing. "They've gone in way over the top to secure the rights," said the publican. "But the reception's variable, the number of dodgy access cards doing the rounds is untrue and the picture keeps freezing. When you've got a pub full, that means 20 heart attacks per match for me."
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