When Forest Beat Barcelona

Last season’s Carabao Cup defeat to Manchester united signalled the end of a thirty year wait for a semi-final in a major competition for Nottingham Forest, but there was a time when finals were a regular occurrence including a two-legged victory over Barcelona in Europe.

We’re going to take you back in detail courtesy of exclusive interviews with Forest legend Garry Birtles and Antonio Olmo of Barcelona. Whilst I complied the questions in Nottingham our Spanish correspondent Toni Mora conducted the operations in the Balearics.

The competition in question was the 1979 European Super Cup, which pitted Forest, the European Cup winners, against Barca, the champions of the European Cup Winners Cup. The abolition of the Cup Winners Cup in 1999 saw the UEFA Cup/Europa League winners take its place as the mandatory challengers.

The first leg took place at the City Ground in front of just 23,807 fans on Wednesday, 30th January 1980 due to fixture congestion. The Forest line up was star studded to say the least including names like Charlie George, John Robertson, Stan Bowles, and the late, great, Trevor Francis. The Reds were favourites to win the game and did so by a solitary goal to nil, which is precarious when the second leg is at the Camp Nou. The goal itself was scored by Charlie George, who planted a looping header over Pedro Artola in front of the Trent End after just 9 minutes.

The return fixture in Barcelona was a cauldron of noise, more so after Barca took the lead in the 25th minute through the Brazilian Carlos Roberto who placed his penalty low into the bottom right-hand corner. However, the reigning European champions were back on terms in the 42nd minute thanks to Kenny Burns’s cultured header. The game ended 1-1, 2-1 on aggregate, thus giving forest their first and only Super Cup success; remarkably, the two sides would never competitively meet again meaning that Forest joined Dundee United in becoming a British club never to have lost to the Catalan giants. Many will already know this, but Dundee United are the only club in Britain to boast a 100% record v Barcelona having beaten them home and away twice!

The Beleric Island of Menorca has Catalonian roots therefore you’ll find a lot of Barcelona fans there, perhaps more surprising is the handful of Nottingham Forest supporters in the tiny town of Mercadal. One of those, Toni Mora, agreed to co-write this piece with me and doing so pulled a rabbit from the hat in the form of an exclusive interview. I’d asked Toni to try and locate a Barca fan who was at the Camp Nou when Forest came to town; so, you could imagine my disbelief when he informed me that he’d interviewed none other than Antonio Olmo who was on the pitch for Barcelona that evening versus Forest. Olmo was capped 13 times by Spain and racked up over 200 appearances for Barcelona, winning three Spanish Cups and two European Cup Winners Cups in the process.

Toni asked Olmo if he knew much about Nottingham Forest prior to the Super Cup clash?

“Yes, obviously, the English football league was very popular in Spain. Before the tie we knew the difficulties that we’d face. During that time the English game was very well known, playing spectacular football and filling the stadiums with huge crowds. Forest played a 4-4-2 with two forwards who were like towers.”

What did you make of the City Ground?

“A typically English stadium: in my youth I’d had the opportunity to travel and play against English clubs, they had a spectacular atmosphere and were nearly always full, it was nice to play in such places like the City Ground. Whenever Forest got into our half the Nottingham crowd was so loud, you’d think a goal had just been scored, and Forest also looked like creating a chance each time they attacked us.

You were in defence for Barca, did any of the Forest forwards make life difficult for you?

Their names escape me, but I remember those two towers, they caused us problems, especially at the City Ground. They also had two 6’2” tall centre halves who caused real danger from attacking corners.”

What were Barca lacking against Forest?

“Forest played very direct football like most English sides, from the keeper or centre halves, long balls to the centre forwards who’d knock down for the attacking midfielders. Competing with them in the air was practically impossible because they were very physically powerful, they played very practical football.”

How do you compare the current English topflight to that of Spain (Premier League to La Liga?)

“I’ve been in love with English football for years, more so since Pep Guardiola took the reins at Man City, I like him a lot and followed his progress since his formative years in coaching.” (I later discovered that Antonio Olmo coached Guardiola and Xavi as youth players at Barcelona). “Currently, English clubs are playing nice football; Man City, Liverpool, and Arsenal to name but a few. The Premier League is very competitive, it conjures up results that you just don’t expect despite the elite sides having highly rated players in comparison to the lower placed sides. Furthermore, the England Women’s team are the reining European Champions too!”

How does 80’s football compare to that of today?

“Back then you’d see scores like 5-4, 4-3 etc but it’s more complicated now with all the technology, VAR is providing much more information during the games. Football used to be a lot harder and aggressive in our day”

As I sat down with Garry Birtles to conduct his interview, he mused upon the programme from the first leg at the City Ground which I’d brought with me, without saying a word, immediately I could see that it evoked a whirlwind of memories which he was only too happy to share with our readers. On reading Antonio Olmo’s interview Garry looked at me totally perplexed saying “Towers, he must mean me and Charlie George, that’s a strange one, we were one of the best passing sides in Europe under Brian Clough, we certainly weren’t direct in my opinion.”

I asked Garry about how he and his colleagues perceived Barca going into the Final?

“Brian Clough told us to respect your opposition, whoever they were, but never to fear them! It was like facing that great Liverpool side, we knew how good Barca were and how staggeringly good their stadium was.”

How seriously did Garry Birtles and Forest take the Super Cup?

Obviously, it wasn’t as important as the European Cup, but we prepared for every game as if we were playing Liverpool. We were going to give it everything we had because we wanted to win things, playing football in those days wasn’t about the money, it was simply about winning trophies and Brian Clough wouldn’t allow anything less! It was a two-legged affair back then, which is better than the one-off version used today because there’s no excuses. Also, I can’t understand why the Champions League is named so when you don’t need to be the champion of your country, or reigning European Champions to qualify for it?”

Tell us about the goal scorer at the City Ground, Charlie George.

“I don’t think many people realised we had him at the club and of course he bagged the winner, I can’t remember whether it myself or Trevor Francis who set him up. Charlie was so talented, he had every kind of goal in his locker, and his header gave us an advantage going to Spain.”

The Nou camp (or Camp Nou), what was it like playing there?

Garry took a deep breath and smiled broadly; “It was huge, I think the capacity was around the 100,000 mark back then. They (Barcelona) were very strong and physical, especially a guy called Migueli who was marking me, he was tough to play against, a lot like the Italian Gentile who I faced playing for England, ironically, his surname translates into gentle in English and he was far from it let me tell you! The pitch was fantastic, and the atmosphere was electric for the second leg of the Super Cup, I still remember it so well; it’s a privilege to play against Barcelona and in such a wonderful stadium, especially for a lad from a Nottinghamshire council estate. I played at the Nou Camp again a few years later against Diego Maradona in a friendly, the pitch was awful that day, similar to the City Ground’s surface versus Cologne in that 3-3 draw. However, Maradona skipped across the surface like you wouldn’t believe, it showed what a magnificent player he was.

Despite Barca having not lifted the European Cup/Champions League by 1980, did you envision them to be the club they are today?

Given their stadium size, fanbase and pedigree I guess you could see what they’d go on to achieve in the modern era. They’ve produced so many world class players; Puyol, Xavi, Busquets, Iniesta, and David Villa. I was co-commentator for their Champions League Final victory over Manchester United in 2011, they were staggeringly good!” Garry picked up the Super Cup Programme again from the table in front of us and mused upon the back page saying “However, when I look at this Forest line up it was an honour to play alongside such greats as these, including John McGovern and Colin Barrett, who missed this game, what a team; my hometown team.”

When I conjured up the idea for this article, I’d pinned my hopes upon interviewing a supporter from each club who attended the two legged final, not in my wildest dreams did I imagine myself and Toni Mora would be speaking at lengths with two club legends. We can’t thank both Garry Birtles and Antonio Olmo enough for giving up their time to speak with Nottingham Sport. Equally as important are the following people to whom I’m indebted for their help in researching this piece; Reg Patterson, Danny Boyes, @clashcitybloke, Jon Peck, Alba J. Pons and Andrew Linley. Andy is a walking encyclopaedia of all things Nottingham Forest, and I wasn’t at all surprised to see the pages of newspaper cuttings in his scrapbook about the time Forest beat Barca in Europe!”