Formation And Forest

A fine Western film recently shown on BBC iplayer called ‘The Sisters Brothers’, has two hired men – the brothers – track down a chemist who’s found a formula to separate gold dust from river sludge. The only problem is (spoiler alert) that contact between the chemical and skin leads to almost certain death.

I mention it because what appears to be the magic formula in the film turns out not to be so. And so it goes with football. (Not death but success and failure!) Formations and formulas. These days, clubs don’t boast teams but squads. Players get purchased – such as last year’s Forest star Djed Spence, loaned from Middlesborough and bought by Spurs – to spend more time sat on a bench than playing on the pitch. All part of rotating formations! Legions of players get fielded out to lesser clubs across Europe but the biggest Premiership teams still list enough stars to make up multiple combinations of line-ups tailored to meet them needs of fixture and circumstance.

Gone are the days of heroic stories such as Forest’s FA Cup victory over Luton Town with ten men in 1959, brought about because Roy Dwight broke his leg before substitutes had been introduced. Or the time when Forest were reduced, through injuries, to winning the 1980 European Cup without a full complement of substitutes. Those were times when a squad of fifteen fit and able players was a luxury!

When I turned up to my first game for a Clifton Estate, Nottingham, Under 12 team, I met Mr Farmer. Always with a full-strength-Capstan cigarette hanging in his mouth, he’d check off each lad on his little notepad as they arrived.

“Charlie, where’s Charlie?” he asked.

“He can’t come. His mum’s poorly,” said a lad.

“He took his shirt home!” replied Mr Farmer. “Has anybody got his shirt?”

Silence, as we all got changed and he ticked us off and welcomed me to the team and threw a shirt in my direction. “That’s the spare one so look after it.” We listened as he told us what we’d do if Charlie didn’t turn up. Be careful with the ball, don’t lose it, and ten in a side can sometimes be better than eleven. No reserves, no subs, and – I found out at half-time when we sucked our half orange – not the worst turn-out as, a couple of games back, they’d played with a team of nine. Team selection was not an issue! As for tactics on those windswept or waterlogged playing fields by the edge of the estate, they could be summed up in ‘kick and rush’.

A year on and with a different team, smartly turned out in our all-white kit, I found myself with lads who had some positional sense and who developed an understanding and talked to each other on the pitch. They even had reserves, such was the competition to be in the team! Over the next few seasons, we lost few games and won a lot of trophies. A new player – usually from another area of the city – would be introduced once in a while but our manager and trainer had hit on a winning formula.

Any Forest supporter would be spoilt for choice in choosing a couple or more players who combined to perform better together than even their individual talents might have suggested. Larry Lloyd and Kenny Burns were a formidable centre-back pairing in the late 70s, as were Frank Clark and John Robertson on the left flank. Clark (quoted in David McVay’s ‘Forest’s Cult Heroes’) summed-up their understanding. “Our thing was to get the ball out to the fat lad (Robbo) on the wing. When all’s said and done, he was the one player who made us all better with his contribution.” Or think striking duo Kevin Campbell and Van Hooijdonk. Etc. And, of course, there have been times when a whole Forest team has galvanised to bring success. (Another opportunity to pick your own special moments!)

In the entertaining comic-fantasy novel ‘How Steeple Sinderby Wanderers Won The FA Cup’ by JL Carr, (turned into a brilliant one-man play by Nottingham’s New Perspectives theatre company) a village team makes it to Wembley. In it, the new headmaster of the village school turns out to be – improbably – some kind of Hungarian mathematical genius. He’s worked out a formula for success on the football pitch and applies it to the local team. The result of his insights give the book its title. If that can happen in fiction, reality is – as it were – a different story!

We talk of the depth of a squad, though quantity doesn’t always make for quality. The keys to success are many but surely underpinned by how a team works together and a line-up that suits coaching staff and the team to bring out their best. Like chess, with its opening gambits and multiple middle to end-game strategies, the permutations are endless in football. To those coaches who consistently find winning ways, we have to say ‘well done’, whoever we support. Chances are that the right combination is achieved through skill and a slice of luck. Call it chemistry or alchemy! Sometimes, things just click. Forest fans yearn to see the magic ‘click’, be it between combinations of players or through the whole team, some time soon.