The missing piece in my quest to try and buy up all the old Forest tops that I either once owned and flogged on, or some retro ones that have been reproduced.

Here we have a blackout kit. I know, I know. It’s what all the cool hipsters are wearing down at Selhurst.

Maybe I should clarify that: all the cool hipsters down at Selhurst aren’t wearing Forest blackout kits, but you get the idea.

This is actually a really great design. It’s based on the legendary Forest 92 green away kit that was never worn in any competitive match. Replacing the green is… black.

I’m being drawn towards black an awful lot of late. It’s a black and white world - or rather it’s a black and white world when you have a body mass that is covered in more black ink more than naked flesh.

Forest would look cool as fuck to be honest these days if they did have a black kit. Chris Wood would look the bollocks in it.

And so the first pre-season for Forest with a short trip made across the Trent to take on Notts County. Blimey, the World Cup hasn’t even finished yet.

Poor old Notts. Meadow Lane is falling down, etc. I’ve always had a soft spot for the Barcode Boys on the other side of the Trent.

This dates back to the mid-1970s when we were given freebie tickets to watch the Pies at school. Forest were in no such need of having to entice young ankle biters into the World Famous City Ground even back then.

Charlie Palmer Day was not so great, but I do have fond memories of watching Colin Wanker’s team during their consecutive promotion years down at the Lane. We had the last laugh though a year later when Lars Bohinen completely destroyed the Magpies midfield.

But yeah poor old Notts, the more they hate us the more we like them. Bring back the County Cup I say.

I did ponder about forking out the £1.99 for the Forest stream. I’m such a tight arse that I even did a momentary search for some dodgy internet feed. In the end I buckled and reluctantly handed over my dosh.

It was worth it alone to hear Jason Lee on comms. He has a foot in both camps.

Forest had an incredibly strong starting 11 for OG’s first match. In charge. I wasn’t expecting that.

I also wasn’t expecting to see Yates still wearing the Captain’s armband. No complaints, Yatesy scores we’re in the Trent etc, but from which side will he be entering?

The new shirt still looks shit. I can’t get over that blob that is supposed to represent the mist rolling in. It was rather pleasing, however to see no sponsor’s logo as yet, leaving a rather fresh feel to the Garibaldi red.

It’s three years since we last played this slot in a pre-season. Both clubs have come a long way since then.

Forest more or less managed to improve with every transfer window; Notts have finally got themselves back into the old Third Division. It’s always good to know where you belong.

Kick off came Both teams were a little rusty, as to be expected. Notts are slightly ahead of us in their pre-season preparations. Hutchinson in particular seemed to struggle.

Also struggling was the fella doing the main commentary. I didn’t catch his name, and he certainly didn’t capture the name of Forest’s leading man. It seems that we have signed Morgan Rogers - surely some mistake.

The first goal came from Jesus. He walks on the Trent as the song says. It was a very cool finish as he ran straight down the middle.

Notts really struggled. They are even worse at set pieces than Forest. I didn’t think this was possible.

I did doze off ever so slightly at the start of the second half. I woke up feeling rather confused, seeing the complete change of personnel. This meant the annual appearance of Omar Richards.

When’s the next flight out to Greece?

Kalimuendo took his goal very well. He reminds me very much of Keinan Davis, being something of a battering ram up front.

We may just have solved our striker dilemma. There’s no need to go splashing the cash with Kalimuendo looking so sharp. Cheers Dyche for setting him back six months or so with a complete lack of confidence.

Elsewhere and Taiwo looked more than capable as well. I love the way he surprises us each season, always proving the doubters wrong. He looked mean and fighting fit.

And so a 2-0 win on the other side of the Trent for OG’s first outing. We picked up no injuries and there looked to be plenty of depth in the squad.

Next up: some more new signings and some shiny new toys please.

Crime of the Century? Talk about nominative determinism. This is basically pop Pink Floyd. I’m all for prog and certain elements of pop, but it’s a most unlikely alliance of genres trying to be welded together. I’d rather listen to this than what pop troubles the charts these days, but that’s just the old man shaking his fist at a cloud. Dreamer almost gets me having a little jig, but that’s about the best that it gets.

⭐ ⭐

And so Forest tease us with New Kit Day, which drops at 8:00 am tomorrow morning. Whoop de do.

The kit has been leaked online for a number of weeks now - or at least various knock-offs and interpretations have leaked. Some of the early designs even suggested a Fred Perry-style polo shirt trim Sadly that’s not to be.

In the end we have a rather bland generic red Forest kit. It will look even more crappy once all the sponsors' logos and extra Premier League badges get attached to it. We crave simplicity. We get something over than modern football is rubbish design.

It needn’t be this way. It could be oh so easy but with Adidas. The legacy all that Forest fans crave for is a slightly updated version of that championship winning crisp Adidas design.

We’re worthy of the old Adidas logo, along with other legacy clubs such as Newcastle United and Manchester United. Give us a very simple design that Robbo would have been proud of and it would sell by the truckload.

This new kit is fleecing fans at £85 a pop - and that’s just for the top. No thank you, I don’t think so.

No doubt there’ll be the usual lavish online launch come the morning, with plenty of teaser videos and then some full length Hollywood feature style three minute promo clip to celebrate the kit.

At least it’s been rushed out in time for the glamour game of Notts County away on Saturday. I do miss those County Cup finals.

I’ve not bought a new kit for many, many years now. Instead I’m stocking up with my wish list of retro designs that I want to catch up on.

All that I’m missing from the collection is the blackout that COPA manufactured. This is currently going for around £45 for new on various platforms; £25 is my top price.

New Kit Day should be a very close second behind Fixture Release Day in the football calendar. But when this kind of crap comes out then it’s hard to get excited.

No doubt Forest and Adidas will try and spin the story that the splodges on the main body design represent the mist rolling in. You can even see Mist Rolling In woven into the shirt collar. It looks more like someone has had four cans of SPESH and then made a mess over their new £85 kit.

As I say, modern football is rubbish.

FFS, Forest. Here we go again.

And so Romano is reporting that Vitor Pereira is unlikely to start the new season as head coach at the World Famous. Oh Lordy, that’s just what we need ahead of the players about to return for pre-season.

We’ve been here before of course, many, many times. I was really hoping that the new season ahead for Forest would be one of stability, starting with the same coach as last season - and preferably ending with him.

A top ten finish would be fine. A decent cup run and a possible Wembley appearance is all that we ask for.

But nope, Marinakis wants it all. You have to applaud the Big Fat Greek for his ambition but I’m not sure we have the infrastructure, or even the current fan mentality, to be able to match the dizzy heights in which he has set.

Something has to give. You keep on pushing for more and more and then eventually something breaks at the seams. Just look how the bubble imploded at both West Ham and Leicester.

Sure Pereira didn’t exactly trail blaze us into an end-of-season glory, but he was very, very good with his tactics. He did the job in keeping us up, something we were told was the main criteria in hiring him.

He skilfully managed the demands of Thursday in Europe and then Sunday back in the Premier League. A semi-final appearance in a major European competition is simply stunning for a club the size of Forest.

We came so, so close. Villa were a far better side for the away leg, and were tactically organised sufficiently to get the job done.

I really thought Pereira would survive at least until Christmas. There have always been whispers about his start of the season at Wolves last year. As long as he didn’t have too much say in the transfer window then I was confident that his coaching would be all that was required.

There was the red herring of a possible move to the Saudi Super League. Maybe that wasn’t a red herring? It all did feel a little odd when the contract talks were on and then both sides diplomatically said they were happy for them to be put on hold.

I get tired of saying trust in the process, trust the Big Fat Greek. Each time he more or less seems to deliver with the right person waiting in the wings.

But for every Steve Cooper and Nuno there’s also a Martin O’Neill and Sean Dyche. Oh Gawd, how Dyche must be pissing himself right now.

This is all so unsettling for the players. Elliot Anderson is about to kick off in a few minutes in a World Cup knockout match. Technically he’s still a Forest player. I doubt the news has even reached him that his club coach is on the verge of being replaced.

I really can’t be arsed to look online for the odds as to who is favourite to replace Pereira should the Big Fat Greek pull the trigger button. Marco Silva would be the fans' favourite but that ship has long since sailed.

I was getting a little excited about pre-season. I even thought through the possibilities of a trip back to the Fair City for the Notts pre-season.

I can’t be bothered now, knowing that there is so much uncertainty behind the scenes.

I really want to be part of a club that is pushing forward together, on and off the pitch. That’s the cliche that Forest fans sing but the reality is far from different.

It’s time for the Big Fat Greek to recognise that a compromise is needed for what his ambitions are and what the fan base wants. We want stability, we want certainty. We want glory but not at any price.

A Stuart Pearce The Leader T-shirt from around 1993. I actually had an original of this back in the day. I pretty much didn’t take it off for a two-year period, and that included running half marathons in it.

I’ve still got the photo of me looking not quite so fresh-faced, wearing The Leader as I crossed the finish line in the 1993 Robin Hood half. Betcha I could still duck under my one hour 45-minute timing for that particular race.

I have questions about this T-shirt. The first is that The Leader is obviously playing on the popular song title of a convicted paedophile. Oh dear. You couldn’t get away with that these days.

There’s also Stuart Pearce Promotions. It’s not an official Forrest product, but something that Psycho obviously went about doing himself. I don’t think image rights were a thing for professional footballers in the early nineties.

Then there’s that iconic picture: on my days, those thighs, that bulge in his shorts. Don’t focus on that bulge in his shorts, Jase.

I think it’s the celebration following the goal in the 1991 FA Cup Final. That had a happy ending, right?

The T-shirt itself is in surprisingly good nick for something that is over three decades old. I can’t see any visible sweat marks under the armpits.

I did have the thought that maybe it is my original that I sold around 10 years ago that has now come back to me, but the lack of sweating under the armpit suggests not.

Christ, he was such a hero of mine at the time, and remains so to this day.

And so farewell the Geordie Maradona. There’s been some uncertainty over the overnight price quoted for the sale of Elliot Anderson to Manchester City. Was it £116 million or £130 million?

I get confused by football finances these days. Long gone are the days when Trevor Francis was sold for one million pounds and you knew where you stood. There were reportedly no add-ons, no obligations, and no hidden costs down the line (although technically it wasn’t a one million pound transfer fee…).

But anyway, back to the Geordie Maradona. He’s been bloody brilliant for Forest hasn’t he? A £35 million pound purchase to a £130 million pound sale doesn’t tell the whole story.

he weird PSR deal that saw the Greek fella head in the other direction towards Newcastle makes it more like a £15 million pound purchase being flogged on for whatever the final price is. Job’s a good ‘un.

I remember hearing loads of hype over the summer when we signed him. Endless podcasts raved about how good he was. I have to confess I’d never heard of him.

There wasn’t even any consensus as to where he would play. It seemed at first that he would be an MGW in waiting. The thinking was that we would get one more season out of Morgan, then Elliott would be able to step up and fill in that central role in the middle of the pitch.

I’m not even sure he knew what his exact role would be at Forest but it’s testament to the player that he pretty much manufactured it for himself. He found a way of playing that made it impossible for our long list of Head Coaches to leave him out. Put simply, he just dominated everything in midfield.

He goes about the job so quietly as well. You don’t want to get too star-struck over these extremely well-paid footballers, but judging by his profile and his rare media interventions, he seems like a thoroughly bloody well-rounded and decent young man. That’s a rarity in the modern game.

Unfortunately I’ve never got to actually see him play live. Getting a Forest ticket at the World Famous these days is near on impossible. Watching him on the telly gives you some degree of understanding as to how he dominates games. I would have loved to have seen him at the World Famous up front and how he can dictate the entire play around the pitch.

I think Forest played a blinder here. We turned down the initial two bids. It seems that the intention was always to agree to the third bid. Man City probably knew that as well. Both sides played the game well.

It works out well for Forest, saying they sold a player for the current highest British transfer fee. Ditto for Man City. He is a marquee signing for what is supposedly a marquee club in English football.

It does leave us with a what next question. We simply can’t replace him, but the money gives us options to buy up to two or even three players that we need to fill that gap.

And so farewell to the Geordie Maradona. In decades to come we will be speaking about him in the same hushed tones as the likes of Archie Gemmill, Neil Webb and Roy Keane, although to be honest I think he tops that list even now.

And so Forest have turned down a second bid from Manchester City for Elliot Anderson worth 120 million pounds. That surprised me on two fronts:

First, the absolute fuck off size of the bid. Blimey. So we’re turning down 120 million pounds? That’s phenomenal but I’m here for it.

The second surprise was that we even had the balls to say no once again. At the end of the day we always win, etc.

I can’t see the Anderson outcome being the same as MGW last season. I think most Forest fans are resigned to losing the England star, and probably sooner rather than later.

But still, 120 million pounds, shit, that’s crazy money. It shows the scale at which Forest have shifted in the past five years from being Championship fodder to producing and fighting to hold on to world-class players.

It’s a win-win situation for Forest. I really can’t see us keeping Anderson, especially after what is expected to be a dazzling World Cup for him. If we do have to say farewell to the Geordie Maradona then we will certainly get a large payday coming out of it.

If by some miracle the Big Fat Greek manages to keep Anderson at the World Famous, then next season just got a whole lot more interesting.

I still expect a deal to be done with Man City before England’s first competitive game of the World Cup. Man City and the player himself won’t want this hanging over the rest of the tournament.

But the question is how high do Man City go in order to get their man?

And so Forest have released their retained list for the 2026-27 Premier League season. First things first - it’s worth saying that again: the 2026-27 Premier League season. We took that for granted almost ten months ago. To have a fifth season competing in the top flight is an outstanding achievement for a club of our size.

There were no great surprises in the retained list. It will be sad to see Willy Bolly leave the club but he has served his purpose. He wasn’t even a bit-part player last season. For a brief spell during the Steve Cooper years he was an unlikely hero, always relied upon to be a calming figure in defence. He was also a great dug-out cheerleader.

No surprises in seeing Angus Gunn depart Forest. It was still a really odd signing this time last year. He was clearly misled in thinking he will be challenging for the goalkeeper’s number one jersey. We saw less than 45 minutes of him playing first-team action.

I’m a little sad to see Stefan Ortega also not be retained. I thought he was magnificent as a Europa League starter. Sadly not having European football next season means it will be a struggle for him to get any game time.

I remember him saying some very fine things about the club and its history after only being around for a few weeks. If you know your history, etc.

I’d forgotten all about Lorenzo Lucca, or Pizza Crouch as he was affectionately known. He wasn’t affectionately known for being a great player. He looked completely out of sorts right from the start. Clearly he was a Dyche signing who never really fitted in once we gambled with Pereira. Thank Gawd we didn’t trigger his 30 million pound or so release clause after he had played x number of minutes.

Looking a little further down the list and some other names that you tend to forget about are still there as retained. David Carmo and Omar Richards have yet to see any first-team action for Forest. It feels like they have been around since the start of the Premier League comeback era, except for the loan periods.

Jota Silva has also been retained. I would love to see him fight for a Forest place once again. He was an absolute dynamite bulldog running around, without really doing much. He’s a complete chaos type of player.

Taiwo has also been retained. That’s an interesting one. I suspect if someone comes in with a cheeky 10 million pounds for a Championship club or a newly promoted Premier League side, then he will be allowed to move on.

Don’t read anything into the fact that Elliot Anderson is still listed as a retained player. I expect to refresh the Forest website and that to change within the next 48 hours.

This all gives me some excitement ahead of the new season. The next step is fixture release day. BALLS to your stupid World Cup.

And so the final team news of what has been a cluster fuck of a season for Forest landed. Still no Murilo. wtf was that Villa Europa semi all about? The dark recesses of the modern interweb has the rumour mill working overtime. It does sound like the Boy from Brazil is probably fit, and wanted to remain so before seeing what other options are out there ahead of the new contract signing.

Bournemouth are no mugs, They rocked up at the World Famous on a seventeen match unbeaten PL run. That’s quite some going. An unthinkable Champions League place was even within their grasp ahead of KO. Let’s sink them, along with their crappy Lego ground and embarrassing club badge.

Harry Hodge was on fine form on BBC Radio Nottingham ahead of KO:

“It’s been a good season and I’ve really enjoyed it.”

Blimey. Speak for yourself, fella.

KO came. My eyes were elsewhere. I had Forest on the telly, and then #lolspurs and West Ham across a couple of MacBooks. On the beach, on the settee, etc. The main action was elsewhere.

The tribute to Robbo just before KO was lovely. Forest may be a BONKERS club on and off the pitch, but they do seem to pull off these important occasions with class, showing the respect that is deserved for Robbo.

Out came the players, out came the kids. Awwww, isn’t it sweet? Erm… I’m sorry to sound all old school on you, but I can’t get my head around players' kids coming out for a bit of a family photo album moment ahead of KO. This is SERIOUS business. I do wish we could return to the old City Ground days of the away team running out first at 2:55pm, to be greeted with:

“WHO THE FUCKING HELL ARE YOU?”

The MGW chants started early. They were swiftly followed by the Trent End letting its collective voice air an opinion on Tuchel. Anderson aside, I have zero interest in what will be a crappy and increasingly corporate World Cup. Pre-season can’t come quick enough.

The game started at a killer pace. Both teams would struggle to keep this up under Mediterranean temperatures down on the banks of the Trent.

Cometh the hour, cometh MGW. UP YOURS, Tuchel, etc.

The second half was a little shaky for Forest. Bournemouth are a bloody good team. But we were on the beach, and tbh, I really didn’t give a shit. It was finally fun watching Forest after what has been a very painful season. The equaliser almost passed me by.

It was a smart move to sub Anderson after sixty minutes. It meant he was injury free ahead of the World Cup, which will only increase his price value. If he does miraculously decide to stay, then no doubt he will thank Forest for giving him a safe passage for what is to follow this summer.

Meanwhile, over in MacBook Land and #lolspurs were winning; likewise for West Ham. Imagine how bleak this could have been if we were still involved in a last day shoot out.

And so farewell season season four in the PL. Thank fuck that’s over. At least we didn’t get relegated wearing pinstripes again.

I felt a little sorry for Nuno, but only for a fleeting moment. If only he had kept his mouth shut back in August - which feels like an absolute age away.

A farewell to Anderson? Possibly. But we can cash in, and hopefully rebuild over the coming weeks, preferably starting ASAP. There’s a growing pile of deadwood that needs to go. My manta for the summer months is to not get sucked into the transfer hype machine that is FFTV.