Civic crest badge appears on shirt (1947*)
On this day in Nottingham Forest history in 1947* Forest’s old civic-style crest appeared on the club’s kit.
Nottingham Forest’s old civic-style crest was part of the club’s pre-Tricky Tree visual identity, linking the badge directly to the city itself.
Before the modern Tricky Tree badge, Forest used imagery drawn from the City of Nottingham coat of arms. The design connected the club visually to the city, rather than creating a separate football symbol of its own. In some versions, the Nottingham arms were adapted with “NFFC” replacing the castle at the top.
The exact first use is difficult to pin down. Some crest-history sources place Forest’s first use of the old civic-style badge around 1947, while other kit records point more clearly to later appearances, including the late 1950s. For that reason, this entry should be treated as a careful year-based identity event, not a confirmed exact-date badge launch.
The crest shows how Forest represented themselves before the Tricky Tree. The old civic imagery tied the club to Nottingham’s wider history, while David Lewis’s 1973 design later gave Forest a cleaner and more distinctive modern identity.
* Date note: 1 August 1947 is used as a cautious season-opening placement only. Sources suggest Forest’s old civic-style crest was in use around the post-war period, but no exact first-use date has been found, and some records point to later confirmed kit appearances.
Sources
Historical Football Kits; Nottingham Forest badge-history sources; World Soccer Pins historical crest records
Forest timeline
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