Billy Davies started his managerial career
at Motherwell and took them to the brink of European Football but
was subsequently sacked the following season. Davies moved south to England and took on the
role of assistant manager to former Scotland national coach Craig
Brown at Preston and was given the managers job in 2004. Davies took Preston to the brink of the Premier
League via the play-offs in May 2005 but lost in the final. Despite
a difficult start to the 2005-06 season, Preston went on to qualify
for the play-offs for a second successive season although the side
again failed to win promotion as they were knocked out by Leeds
United after losing the semi-final second leg. Davies then accepted an offer to manage Derby
County in June 2006. In Davies's first season as Derby manager he
led them to third place in the league and then won the play-offs
after defeating Southampton in the semi-finals and then West Bromwich
Albion at Wembley Stadium, ending Derby's five year absence from
the top flight. After criticising Derby's board for lack of investment, Davies left Pride Park by mutual consent in November 2007 with the club bottom of the league. Whilst some critics believed that Davies was a victim of his own success after over achieving in his first season at Pride Park, others citied his apparent tactical inefficiencies at top flight level. Poor man management, poor big money signings
(including £3m Claude Davis, who has been described as the
club's "worst major signing") and suggested Davies had
engineered his own departure, in the form of an outspoken rant against
the board, in which he admitted his own signings weren't good enough",
to avoid having a relegation on his CV. spending £15 million
on players in the premiership and then saying he had no financial
backing from the Derby board. In December 2008, he took over as manager at
Nottingham Forest and kept them in the division after a tough relegation
scrap. He re built the team the following summer and finished third
in the table to make the playoffs again but for the third time in
his career his team fell short losing in the semi final.
Forest started last season slowly not winning for the first four games and were a bit of a draw specialist but as the new team began to gel they looked a very strong outfit. They announced themselves as genuine promotion candidates with a win over Newcastle United and with Blackstock banging the goals in up front they went on a stunning run to over take Newcastle in second place. They ran out of steam though near the end of the season and after failing to attract new players in January they dropped out of the automatic promotion race and had to settle for third place. They faced Blackpool in the Playoff semi final but were stunned by the seasiders who beat them 4-3 at the City Ground to reach the final. All in all though it was a very good season for Billy Davies side.
Forest did really well last season and looked a good bet for an automatic place until March when they had to settle for the playoffs. Off the field problems could escalate this season with rumours of the clubs football panel starting to sell players without Billy Davies knowing. As we've sene at QPR that doesn't usually end well but if they can get over those problems and let Davies get on with the job they will be a real threat. They still have a strong side which should improve even further this season. They have lots of goal sin them with Earnshaw, Blackstock, Tyson and Mcgoldrick. In midfield Anderson and Majewski are both very good players and Camp proved he is a very good keeper at this level. They probably need to add a few more players
if they are going to gain automatic promotion but they should be
able to make the playoffs again and possibly go one better this
year and reach the Premiership.
Nottingham Forest have worn red since the club's foundation in 1865. At the meeting in the Clinton Arms which established Nottingham Forest as a football club, the committee also passed a resolution that the team colours should be 'Garibaldi red'. This decision was made in honour of Giuseppe Garibaldi, the Italian patriot who was the leader of the redshirts party. At this time, clubs identified themselves more by their headgear than their shirts and a dozen red caps with tassels were duly purchased, making Forest the first club to 'officially' wear red, a colour that has since been adopted by a significant number of others. Forest are the reason behind Arsenal's choice of
red, having donated a full set of red kits following Arsenal's foundation
in 1886.
Perhaps the best player to ever wear a QPR shirt was sold to Nottingham Forest in 1978. Stan Bowles wonderful skills and showmanship helped make the mid 1970's such a golden era in the history of Queens Park Rangers. Stan won just five international caps mostly due to his antics off the field rather than the genius he displayed on it. Like most football geniuses his talent on the field was matched with many off field problems and his private life is almost as fascinating as his playing career. Former Rangers star Don Givens describes Stan as "the most talented player I ever played with or saw in action" and not many QPR fans that saw him would disagree. On the other end of the scale John Curtis joined QPR from Forest last summer and it's safe to say he wasn't the best player we've ever seen in the hoops. I'll leave it at that. Gino Padula had a spell at Forest after doing so well at QPR where he was a very popular defender whilst Nigel Quashie began his career at QPR and went on to be a decent player for Forest. In the current squad Forest have two fomrer QPR players
with Dexter Blackstock and Lee Camp making the move from Loftus
Road to the City Ground this summer.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
