Programme Notes

When Dad plants the programme on our kitchen table, he gives me a Cheshire-cat grin. ‘Here you are. Luton Town versus Nottingham Forest. FA Cup final at Wembley. May 2nd 1959.’ Over a Sunday breakfast fry-up, he picks out pages, names and photos. I can’t read (I’m five) and I don’t know what a football programme is but I soon will. For the moment, he reminds me that, the previous day, Forest won, that Granddad and him laughed all the way home on the train and that he’ll keep the programme in the ‘special cupboard’ (full important stuff like bills and bank books) until I’m old enough to appreciate it.

Fast forward a few seasons and that programme is in my possession in my cupboard in my bedroom and it’s been joined by a growing collection from my visits to the City Ground. Granddad buys the match-day programme when he’s with us. He likes me to read out bits before the game as the Bridgford kop fills up. I tell him facts about the visitors, who’s top scorer for the Reds and what fixtures will be on the half-time scoreboard. These are indicated by the letters in alphabetical order and the scores will be hung on hooks by a bloke in the score-box high behind us.

Now flick forward decades and I’m sat with a dusty box in my lap. The clocks have just shunted us into British Summer Time 2023 though you wouldn’t know it from the outside temperature. In the middle of a Spring-clean, de-cluttering mission, I rediscover some memorabilia. A couple of Football Monthly magazines, some newspaper cuttings, a Radio Times feature on the 1966 World Cup and more booklets from that famous victory. Then a mixed bunch of football programmes. I look through the City Ground publications.

There’s the programme – price, four old pence – for January 1959 and Forest’s FA Cup Third Round Replay against Tooting & Mitcham. (That was a close shave of a shock knockout!) Some from those I’ve saved cover the Reds’ 1965 Centenary Year, including one for the visit of Everton in December with a page-long Christmas message from the chairman, Mr GF Sisson. In the spirit of the times, that’s followed by five pages of information on the opposition, plus a team photo. Statistics on Forest players, a couple of black and white photos and plenty of adverts for Player’s cigarettes and that’s about it. Another Christmas, 1991, has Stuart Pearce dressed as Santa Claus on the cover, surrounded by Forest merchandise. There’s an impressive array of colour photos and a double-page Des Walker image. Price £1. But I can no longer find a particular programme I thought I’d kept.

August 1966. The world feels good. The country’s still basking in England’s World Cup glory, the weather’s fine and Forest are warming up for what will be a tremendous season, finishing runners-up to Manchester United in the league and reaching the FA Cup semi-final against Tottenham. And I’m off to the City Ground with my dad and granddad with seat tickets – first time ever – to watch Forest play Stoke City in the opening game (which they’ll lose!) of the season. Granddad’s just retired and in poor health but determined to come along since he treated us to the tickets.

Dad drops us off at Trent Bridge and I walk with my Granddad by the river and he buys me a programme. We sit a while in the sun, wait for Dad, and then head for our seats. There’s the click and crank of the turnstiles and we’re in the cool of the stairwell and climbing, Granddad supported between us. He struggles up the first flight of stairs and then sits on a step and tells me to get to our seats, that he’ll be fine with a cup of tea.

I leave them and head up, catch a shaft of sunlight and a glint of the green pitch and I reach the seats, perched high, giving me an angle of the game I’ve never experienced before. Soon after kick-off, I pop back down to see how they are and find Dad and Granddad sat exactly where I’d left them. ‘Go and enjoy the game,’ says Dad, ‘and we’ll see how things are at half-time’. Come the second half, I stay with Granddad. We sit and sup tea, listen out for any cheers to guess the score and I read out sections of the programme to him. He chuckles at our predicament and that’s how it is until Dad reappears for an early exit to avoid the crowds.

Months later, sat by his coal fire, we’ll share warm words about Forest’s improvement after that Stoke loss. Football-wise, things got better and better. It was the last time Granddad made it to the City Ground, never mind watch a match, but he lived to celebrate Forest’s fine end-of-season achievements.

To this day, despite its being rendered virtually obsolete by the speed and flexibility of social media and websites and forums, I still regard the humble football programme with affection. If it was once the portal through which we could see the life and culture of our club, it now has purpose in posterity if nothing else.