Our ‘On This Day’ feature today looks at the Nottingham Forest programme from the 1978/79 season. Read our review of the Forest issue below and click here to see all the 1978/79 Division One issues.
Forest’s 1978/79 programme cover features four pictures, which for this issue against Arsenal in early September include the parading of plenty of silverware from the clubs’ triumphs the season before!
‘Forest Focus’ is a two-page column written by club secretary Ken Smales, which here offers opinions on TV coverage of football and the pressure that referees are put under by pundits who have the benefit of numerous replays for assessing controversial incidents. The article also speaks to the recent performances of Forest’s reserve team and the goalscoring troubles of the first team who had endured four consecutive goalless draws.
There are two pages of action shots from Forest’s last home league game against West Bromwich Albion, while ‘What the Papers Say’ looks at press coverage of Forest’s recent performances. Club Scene’ collates news snippets from around the club and there are a couple of pages given over to letters from supporters. Meanwhile, ‘Those Were the Days’ is a continuing feature that recalls in this issue the end of Forest’s 1930/31 season.
‘The Reds in Spain’ is a one-page article that covers Forest’s recent visit to Vigo to play a pre-season tournament, in which they drew with hosts Celta Vigo and lost to Porto. Organised at the start of Forest’s first European Cup campaign, the trip perhaps gave the club the kind of experience that helped them to bring back the trophy at the end of the season!
Coverage of opponents Arsenal is impressively detailed, with an introductory page that recalls the club’s form of the previous season and their meetings with Forest, alongside Arsenal’s team group picture. The programme’s centre pages then analyse the Arsenal squad, with profiles of twelve players and pictures of Frank Stapleton and Graham Rix.
There is a good amount of content in this Forest issue, with a mix of contemporary, historical, and opinion pieces combining to make the programme an interesting read.