![\"Stephen-Parker](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nottinghamsport.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Stephen-Parker.png?resize=150%2C150\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\nSat on Santa\u2019s knee in the Griffin and Spalding department store by Market Square, aged five, I was tongue-tied until my mum mouthed \u2018a Forest shirt\u2019. She had primed me on the bus journey to the grotto as to what to ask for but the words deserted me. Come Christmas Day morning, I got my v-neck, short-sleeve shirt (along with lots of plastic soldiers and farm animals). Dad remarked that it had come from \u2018Redmayne & Todd sports shop where Forest players get their kit\u2019, and Mum said, \u2018You\u2019ll grow into it\u2019. And so I did and I grew into the habit of asking for something related to Forest most years through childhood though there wasn\u2019t much to choose from.<\/p>\n
Nowadays, a club shop for any professional team is a given and items sold need have no connection with football aside from a print of the badge or kit colours. And why wait for opening hours when you can buy online? Manchester United seem to have perfected their retail business and fans will have plenty to choose from in the lead-up to December 25th. Baubles, curtains, razors, wrapping paper: pretty much anything is available. Arguably more \u2018Merchandise United\u2019 than Manchester!<\/p>\n
Still, there is footie stuff, too. A signed boot, worn by Paul Scholes and mounted in a glass case (giving another twist to \u2018hanging up your boots\u2019 when you retire) retails at about \u00a3250, for example. Meanwhile, if you want to find out about players currently wearing the United shirt, check out their TV station, glossy magazine or one of their internal sagas that regularly swamp the sporting section in newspapers. The Ronaldo soap-opera reached \u2018EastEnders’ proportions with tales of subterfuge and deceit. And managerial changes in personnel – always good for a story – have rivalled even those of Forest since Alex Ferguson retired!<\/p>\n
The rumour-mill is never far from Old Trafford, nicknamed \u2018The Theatre of Dreams\u2019 by Bobby Charlton. The BBC boasts, in particular, about its coverage of the \u2018Red Devils\u2019. Perhaps it\u2019s something to do with the Munich air disaster in 1958. Few clubs have such a tragic episode written into their history and there are plenty of football followers who have a soft spot for them. That said, it was Roy Keane who famously
\naccused United fans of having gone soft when he called them out as the \u2018Prawn Sandwich Brigade\u2019 because of their lack of vocal support. The one time I visited Old Trafford, a dozen years ago, I was taken aback by the hospitality culture. So many \u2018fans\u2019 appeared to prefer the restaurants to the live football.<\/p>\n
Who\u2019d want to argue with Keane and his rant anyway?<\/p>\n
Mention of his name brings to mind other players – some of Forest\u2019s finest – who\u2019ve headed Manchester way through the years, including Ian Storey-Moore and Gary Birtles. Our Reds have needed the money and the Red Devils usually have plenty of it. Income from commercial enterprises, sponsorship deals, a 75,000 capacity stadium, TV and Champions League appearances help fill the coffers. All has not been smooth-running, though, and fortunes have fluctuated. They\u2019re certainly not one of England\u2019s most successful teams in recent years on the trophy count. Yet their world fame sticks and they\u2019re still the biggest crowd-pulling club in the country.<\/p>\n
With the festive season upon us, what a fine present it would be for Forest fans if our Reds claimed victory at Old Trafford in the day-after-Boxing Day fixture. Imagine: United bloated with Christmas hospitality; Forest, hungry, lean and mean. The stuff of dreams? Maybe. Anything is possible in football, especially at Christmas.<\/p>\n
Months after World War One was declared in 1914, British and German troops held unofficial ceasefires along the Western Front around Christmas Day. Many of them met in no-man\u2019s land between the trenches and exchanged food, tobacco and souvenirs like buttons and hats. They carried out joint burial ceremonies and sang carols together. The truce brought a time of silence and then renditions of \u2018Silent Night\u2019 drifted across the battlegrounds. All of this culminated in impromptu football kick-abouts, played up and down the line. Accounts of the occasion vary but some say the two sides at war played an organised game.<\/p>\n
Manchester United v Nottingham Forest 2022 – or any other fixture – will never compare with the symbolic nature of that ceasefire event but it\u2019s an enticing prospect for supporters of both teams. The former are desperate to claw their way into the top-four and a place in Europe\u2019s elite competition again and Forest are determined to polish their Premiership credentials after over two decades\u2019 absence. Christmas matches always come with added spice, real and imagined, as festive spirits spill through stadiums up and down the country. And if Christmas represents birth and regeneration, it\u2019s also the midway mark for the football season and the beginning of the second half. Time to lift our glasses in the hope that Forest\u2019s return to league games opens with more points. Christmas is, after all, also a time when we toast hopes for the future.<\/p>\n
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