On this day, back in 1978, a former Nottingham Forest player, who spent just a season at the City Ground (he wanted more), made his international debut for Switzerland, in a friendly away to Austria.

Raimondo Ponte spent the 1980/81 season in the East Midlands, having impressed in the previous season’s European Cup quarter-final between Grasshopper Zurich, Ponte’s club at the time, and Nottingham Forest, the Reds winning 5-2 on aggregate with the Swiss side earning a 1-1 draw at home in the second leg.

Ponte played in both legs for a club he had two, lengthy spells for (1974-80 and 1982-88), winning numerous trophies, including three Swiss championships, whilst also helping them reach the 1978 UEFA Cup semi-finals, and 1979 European Cup quarter-finals

The summer after the meeting in the European Cup, Ponte was snapped up by then Forest boss, Brian Clough, joining Forest in August 1980, making his debut for the Reds in the 2-0 defeat against Tottenham Hotspur, second half goals for Spurs coming from Glenn Hoddle and Garth Crooks.

The line-up for Ponte’s Forest debut, against Tottenham, was as follows:

Peter Shilton, Stuart Gray, Kenny Burns, David Needham, Bryn Gunn, John Robertson, John McGovern, Ian Bowyer, Raimondo Ponte, Garry Birtles, Ian Wallace (sub – Martin O’Neill)

The Swiss international would score seven times in his twenty-three appearances for the Reds, the first of which came in the second game of the season, a 2-1 home win over Birmingham City.

Further goals arrived in the 3-1 win at home to Sunderland, the 4-1 win at Wolverhampton Wanderers, the 3-3 draw in the FA Cup Third Round at home to Bolton Wanderers, as well as an unforgettable hat-trick at Gigg Lane, in the 7-0 League Cup Third Round win over hosts Bury.

In a 2019 article for Le Temps, a Swiss French-language newspaper, Ponte spoke of his time in Nottingham, in an article entitled ‘The Ghosts of Nottingham Forest,’ Ponte said of his only season in Garibaldi Red:

“The coach (Leon Walker, national team manager 1979-80) told me that I wouldn’t be able to play for the Swiss team if I wasn’t in the starting line-up more often.

“I still played 24 games, but for Mr. Walker, it wasn’t enough.

“I made the biggest mistake of my career listening to him… Nottingham was fantastic!

“There were world-class players, like Peter Shilton, Trevor Francis, John Robertson. And the stadium was full all the time.

“There were thirty players in the squad, for only twelve on the team sheet.

“There was only one substitute, if the goalkeeper was injured an outfield player would take his place.”

Whilst In Nottingham, in the immediate aftermath of their back-to-back European Cup successes, Ponte would also play in the Reds’ European Cup, European Super Cup, and Intercontinental Cup matches, against CSKA Sofia (Bulgaria), Valencia (Spain), and Nacional (Uruguay) respectively.

The latter, played at the National Stadium in Tokyo, Japan, on Wednesday 11 February 1981, would see the Reds narrowly lose 1-0 to their Uruguayan counterparts; Forest’s line-up for the game in Japan would see the following line-up:

Peter Shilton, Viv Anderson, Kenny Burns, Frank Gray, Stuart Gray, Larry Lloyd, Raimondo Ponte, Martin O’Neill, John Robertson, Trevor Francis, Ian Wallace (sub – Peter Ward)

About playing under the guidance of the legendary Clough, Ponte told Le Temps:

“He was a very good coach and a very special man.

“He knew how to manage the group perfectly, and gave the players a lot of responsibility.

“In the end, it was relatively simple: you were good, you played, you weren’t, you were a substitute.

“But he could do that because out of a group of thirty players, he had twenty really good players.”

Having begun his career with Swiss side FC Aarau, then moving to Grasshoppers, and Nottingham Forest, before leaving the East Midlands for a season with Corsican-French side, Bastia, finishing his playing career back with Grasshoppers.

During that playing career Ponte would also be capped thirty-four times by the Swiss national team, making his debut for his country in the afore-mentioned friendly away to Austria; Ponte would be seen to net twice in the national team jersey, against Iceland in a European Championship qualifying match (9 June 1979), and Bulgaria in a friendly (3 September 1983).

Upon hanging up his boots, at the back of the 1980s, Ponte would turn to management, starting with two spells at FC Baden, before taking on another ten positions, until 2015; his spells with Grasshoppers though have placed him into legendary status (as well as cult hero status in Nottingham), he playing over four hundred matches for the Hoppers, who it is said he still watches play on a regular basis.

And there you have it, a look at the career of Raimondo Ponte, a Nottingham Forest player for but one season, but it was to be enough to leave a lasting impression on him, over twenty-five years later.

*Article provided by Peter Mann (Senior Correspondent).

*Main image @NFFC Raimondo Ponte played 21 league games for Nottingham Forest.