THERE IS a whole generation of younger football fans who will only remember Nottingham Forest as a middling Championship team at best.
The club, who under Brian Clough twice won the European Cup and were indisputably the best team in England for a spell during the 1970s, have long been consigned to the margins of British football.
That could be about to change, however, as they are just one game away — today’s Championship play-off final against Huddersfield — from a long-awaited Premier League return.
A dramatic semi-final against Sheffield United earlier this month ended with the kind of images that have become all too rare at the City Ground in recent decades.
In what was a nerve-ridden contest, Forest prevailed on penalties, prompting scenes of ecstasy among the home fans.
One man at the ground that night celebrating as fervently as anyone was Keith Foy.
Now a fan, the occasion reminded the Dubliner of the kind of triumphs that were more commonplace when he was a footballer at the club.
“It’s been nearly 20 years since I left Forest,” he tells The42. “They haven’t been in the Premier League in 23 years.
“Being back there the other night brought back a lot of memories. How it used to be with the atmosphere, the full house at the City Ground and everything else.
“I was over there for nearly seven years. It is like a second home to me. I’m very fond of it. I try to get over as much as I can. I’m probably over there once every year anyway and I try to get a game in every time. And there was something different about the other night. A lot of positivity around the ground and a lot of hope that they will get back into the Premier League.
“I think over the last few years, the club hasn’t been connecting as much as it had been with the fans. But ever since Steve Cooper came in, he seems to have brought the club closer back to the supporters. Even walking around the city, you sense it in the atmosphere because the football club is doing so well.”
To say that Cooper has done a good job would be putting it mildly. The club finished in 17th position last year and seemed as far away from the Premier League as ever. Initially this season, relegation looked more likely than promotion — former Ireland international Chris Hughton was sacked after six defeats in their opening seven games left them bottom of the table.
Since then, Cooper has transformed their fortunes and left them on the brink of a major achievement.
Foy is delighted by their progress and still has connections at the club — ex-Ireland international Andy Reid is regarded as one of the most beloved figures in the team’s recent history and now manages their U23s side.
“Myself and Andy Reid are quite close,” he says. “We’ve always kept in touch. We shared a room for three years. He’s doing really well with the U23s now. There are probably another three or four lads still living in Nottingham that didn’t quite go on as maybe they wanted to in their football careers. But they still live over there and have their own lives. So I like to keep in touch with those lads as well.
“The likes of David Prutton, Michael Dawson, those lads are obviously on the telly now but we keep in touch with them, they’re at the games. It’s great seeing everyone again and catching up.”
Now 40, Foy was 13 years of age when he made the first of many trips between Ireland and Nottingham.
“My mother and father were brought over [as well],” he recalls.
“The year we signed, Nottingham Forest had come third in the Premier League, so it was a massive club. I probably realised that just being around the city, I was always well looked after, always treated really well. It was a special place for me. I experienced so much over there.
“When I first went over, there was a house just beside the ground. There were about 20 of us in digs.
“We had a mother and father looking after us, looking after your breakfast and lunch. Then when you turned 18 or 19, you went into a house on your own with a family for a year or two, and then you found your own way.”
He continues: “The first year was tough. There were only three Irish there. At the weekends, the English lads were able to just head home and see their family and friends. Unfortunately, because we needed a flight to get home, we got left in the digs. They could be quite lonely at the weekends.
“But the second year, there was a lot more company there to take your mind off things. It was easier to settle in.”
Indeed Foy went from being in the minority to almost the majority.
There were no fewer than 12 other Irish players on the books at the club during his six-and-a-half-year spell there: Reid, Barry Roche, John Thompson, David Freeman, Liam Kearney, Emmet Peyton, Damian Lynch, Niall Hudson, Brian Cash, John Burns, Paul Fenton and Anthony Shevlin.
“The first year we went over there it was only myself, Andy and David Freeman,” says Foy. “The following year, there were about 11 of us.
“The likes of Niall Hudson, John Thompson and Barry Roche came the second year. We nearly took over.”
A measure of how hard it was to make it at the highest level, even without the far greater competition from foreign countries that exists nowadays, is that Reid is the only one of those players who went on to play regularly in the Premier League. Thompson did make over 100 appearances for Forest and win one senior Ireland cap, but the rest either quit playing prematurely or forged a career at a lower level in England or Ireland. The 2002 collapse of ITV Digital, which had serious financial implications for the Football League in general, didn’t help matters in many cases.
“Everything’s changed from when we were over there,” adds Foy. “You can only go over there when you’re 18 [since Brexit], so I guess that has a part to play in it as well.
“It had its pros and cons. I never finished my Leaving Cert so I had nothing really to fall back on afterwards. But that’s all changed now.
“Are you too young [to travel over] at that point? I don’t know. You always dream of being a professional footballer. So when the opportunity comes along, it’s very hard to say ‘no’.
“By the time you turn 15, you’re going into full-time training and everything else so I guess it gives you that opportunity to try to live out your dreams.
“Maybe it was too young in the sense that you’re not finishing your education — that would be one thing that had to be looked at and it has been looked at.
“I think it’s all changed now. I’m led to believe the players don’t have as much time on their hands anymore and they’re looked after better. They’re doing either schoolwork or training, and they’re in before five o’clock in the evening. So it’s more like a full-time job, they haven’t got as much time on their hands. There are people you can talk to and everything.
“It probably wasn’t as it should have been 20 years ago, but that’s just how it was back then and unfortunately, I didn’t deal with it in the correct way.”
Foy did still ultimately make more first-team appearances than all of the Irish players mentioned above with the exception of Reid and Thompson.
Having agreed to sign amid their best-ever Premier League season (1994-95), the defender first moved over during the campaign when they won promotion back to the top-flight (1997-98) only to go straight back down and not return since.
Of that memorable first campaign, he says: “It’d be quite similar [to now]. Every week, they were winning. They had a fabulous team at the time. The likes of Pierre van Hooijdonk, Kevin Campbell, Ian Woan, and Steve Stone. You’re talking about internationals that were playing in the Championship. They won the league that year and every game heading into the City Ground, there was always a great buzz about the place. It was something I hadn’t experienced before.”
However, perhaps in a way, relegation straight back to the second tier was beneficial for a youngster like Foy, as the club would have been less likely to blood an 18-year-old debutant in the Premier League.
“It was a funny one because I was actually off on the Wednesday,” he remembers. “I got a call from Paul Hart to say: ‘Could you come in, the first team want you to train with them?’ I thought I was just coming in to make up the numbers and help with the shape of the upcoming match the first team had on a Saturday.
“He called me in and said: ‘Look, you’re playing on Saturday.’ I had to make a few arrangements. My mother and father had planned to come over that weekend.
“The match was away in Grimsby. I had to make sure my mother and father had a lift up to the game.
“Making my debut was something I had dreamed of as a kid. Obviously being over there for a few years, it was an excellent opportunity then to try to showcase what you were dreaming of.
“We were always sniffing around the playoffs [after the Premier League relegation]. Unfortunately, it just never happened then. We had a young team at the time and the club went into a few financial difficulties.
“We had to let go of a lot of the assets that we had at the time. Then we lost to Sheffield United in the playoffs in 2002. We always look back on that year saying: ‘What could have been.’
“When they got relegated, they had to get rid of a few of the higher earners and the more experienced guys, so I guess it gave the younger lads a chance. But if you’re good enough, it’s where you want to be, the Premier League.”
Foy made 20 appearances in total during that maiden campaign, with a spectacular goal during a 3-1 win over Tranmere among the highlights.
An injury ended his season prematurely, however, and Foy never really recovered from there at Forest, admitting now that a lack of professionalism cost him.
“It was nothing to do with injuries, it was more myself — I wasn’t working as hard as I should have been. I didn’t realise what I had at the time and you just think it’s going to last forever. I wasn’t living my life as I should have been. I should have been working harder to maintain my fitness but I wasn’t.
“I put on a few extra pounds. I lost my fitness. And looking back at the time, I was probably a bit naive to it all, not realising what I was doing to myself. If I could turn the clock back, I’d certainly live my life in a different way and I’d certainly try to keep my fitness up. But I was young and naive at the time, and I more or less threw it away myself.
“At the end of the day, you’re over there training as a young lad. You’re finished training at one o’clock and you have the whole afternoon and evening to yourself, more or less. So you had a lot of time on your hands. If you weren’t as focused as you should have been, it was easy to get distracted and get into the wrong things — unfortunately, that’s what happened to me.”
He continues: “I still remember the day when Paul Hart called me in and told me my contract wasn’t going to be renewed. So I had a choice to leave that Christmas or see the contract out, and I decided to leave. I was in tears leaving the office. I was there for so long. I loved the club so much. It was like all my dreams had just been taken away. But it was all my own fault, not working hard enough.
“I remember sitting in a room up in Doncaster Rovers, who I signed for. I was watching the [Forest] playoff and they lost 4-3 [against Sheffield United. I was on my own in a room and I was in tears watching the game.
"Of course, I still wanted them to win. I was really fond of Paul Hart. I loved the club. A lot of my teammates were involved that I had played with. I created friends in Nottingham that I'll have for life. I wanted them to do well and kick on in their careers, so there was never any resentment. It was my own fault, my own wrongdoing, I wasn't hard done by."
Foy continued playing for just over five years after departing the Reds. The spell at Doncaster proved short-lived, and then he spent a couple of seasons competing in the League of Ireland, encompassing stints at St Patrick's Athletic, Monaghan United and Sligo Rovers.
More recently, he has played and coached at amateur level in the Leinster Senior League, with Bluebell as well as local side Kilnamanagh, enjoying great success with the latter in particular.
After retiring at 28, he had to “start from scratch” with no Leaving Cert behind him, but eventually got a job. He was initially a data technician with Mercury and has spent the past five years and counting working for Amazon.
“I’ve had lads ringing me that are only coming out of football and are wondering what I’m doing,” he says. “‘How did you get into this, how did you get into that?’ I said: ‘Listen, lads, you have to start from scratch.’ I was just lucky that I made that decision at 28, although from the time I was 28 up until my early 30s, it was quite tough — you’re on apprenticeship wages again and you’re trying to cope with all that. But it’s worth it [for what has happened] now.”
Foy has also come to terms with his own difficult exit from Forest. Having initially been reluctant to go back, he now embraces the prospect of a return to the City Ground.
“I went a good few years without going back to the ground. It brought back too many memories and sadness that I wasn’t involved with the club anymore. But I’m well over that now.
“It’s quite easy to go back and it’s only great memories I have of the club now. I’ve had my kids over and they always look out for Nottingham Forest’s results. They’re always letting me know, if I’m not aware, of how they’re getting on. I’ve had the kids into the City Ground, we’ve had walks, and tours, showing them where I used to get changed and everything else. So I’m really fond of Nottingham and of the club.
“I think it was just a case of time, of not being able to face up to what you had. It’s all gone and you’re quite sad for yourself. At the time, you wouldn’t realise that. It’s only looking back now, that you realise why you didn’t go back and it took you a few years to head back. It was emotional going back and it was hard going back because you once had it all and it was taken away from you.”
