Forest Profile

Forest won Europe’s biggest club competition in consecutive seasons, beating Malmö in Munich in 1979 and Hamburg in Madrid in 1980.

Those victories remain the defining achievements of the club’s greatest side and put Forest into a tiny group of clubs to have successfully defended the European Cup.

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Forest’s very first European Cup tie could hardly have been tougher: they were drawn against Liverpool, the reigning champions who had won the trophy in both 1977 and 1978. Forest beat them 2–0 at the City Ground, drew 0–0 at Anfield and went on to take Liverpool’s crown at their first attempt.

Forest added the European Super Cup after beating Barcelona over two legs.

The competition matched the European champions against the European Cup Winners’ Cup holders, and Forest’s victory confirmed that they were genuinely among the elite clubs in Europe at the time.

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Although officially the 1979 Super Cup, both legs were actually played in 1980 because of scheduling problems.

Forest’s only English league title came in their first season back in the top flight.

Clough and Taylor’s newly promoted side finished seven points clear of Liverpool under the old two-points-for-a-win system and completed one of the most remarkable title wins in English football.

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Forest also won the League Cup that season, completing a league-and-cup double immediately after promotion.

Forest’s first major trophy came in 1898, when Derby County were beaten 3–1 at Crystal Palace.

The second followed 61 years later at Wembley, where Roy Dwight and Tommy Wilson scored in a 2–1 victory over Luton Town.

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Dwight broke his leg during the 1959 final after scoring Forest’s opening goal. Substitutes were not allowed, so Forest had to protect the lead with effectively ten men.

Forest became League Cup specialists under Brian Clough, winning the trophy four times across two very different periods of his reign.

The first two came during the championship and European glory years; another pair arrived a decade later with a largely different team.

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Forest won the League Cup in consecutive seasons twice under Clough: 1978–79 and again 1989–90.

Forest started the 1978/79 season as champions of England and added the Charity Shield at Wembley.

FA Cup holders Ipswich Town were beaten 5–0 in a dominant performance that showed the previous season’s title success had been no fluke.

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The 5–0 win is one of the biggest margins of victory in the history of the Charity Shield and Community Shield.

Forest won the Full Members’ Cup twice during the later Clough years, beating Everton in 1989 and Southampton in 1992.

The competition was created for clubs in the top two divisions while English teams were banned from European competition. It never had the prestige of the FA Cup or League Cup, but it gave Forest two more Wembley triumphs.

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The 1989 final against Everton finished 4–3 after extra time, making it one of the wildest Wembley finals of the Clough era.

Before joining the Football League, Forest competed in the Football Alliance, a national league for leading clubs outside the League.

Forest won it in 1891/92 and entered the Football League First Division the following season.

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Forest had been rejected when they applied to join the Football League a year earlier. Winning the Alliance was a fairly emphatic response.

Forest twice won the old Second Division before the modern era.

The first title came in 1906/07, when they bounced straight back after relegation. They were champions again in 1921/22, earning another return to the First Division.

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After the 1921/22 title, Forest lasted three seasons in the First Division before being relegated in 1925. They would then wait 32 years to play top-flight football again, finally returning in 1957.

Forest’s honours story is not only about trophies. The club have also gone deep into major competitions without quite finishing the job.

Those runs include the 1984 UEFA Cup semi-final, the 1991 FA Cup final, the 1995/96 UEFA Cup quarter-final, the 2025 FA Cup semi-final and the 2025/26 Europa League semi-final.

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Forest’s 1984 UEFA Cup semi-final defeat to Anderlecht really was crooked. Forest took a 2–0 lead to Belgium, lost the second leg 3–0 after a highly dubious penalty and had a late goal mysteriously disallowed. Years later it emerged that Anderlecht’s president had paid the referee £18,000. Forest had effectively been cheated out of a place in the UEFA Cup final.