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In a gleaming barber’s shop in the shadow of Nottingham Forest’s City Ground, Feras Al-Youssef is snipping his client’s hair with lightning efficiency, the clippings flying like silver filings to the floor.
“We are going to win the league,” states the Aleppo-born adopted son of the city, lifting his eyes to a signed club shirt on the wall. Then he smiles. “Well, we hope – when this city is in a good mood, there is nothing like it.”
Endorphins have been throbbing around this part of the East Midlands in recent weeks with an intensity last felt during the heady days of 1979-80, when Forest won back-to-back European Cups under the stewardship of club hero Brian Clough.
After narrowly avoiding relegation and being docked points last season – and despite having less of the ball than any other team in the Premier League – Forest sit in third place in the Premier League, behind Arsenal only on goal difference.
After an intoxicating run of six consecutive victories, they face the league leaders Liverpool on Tuesday. And while comparisons to Leicester’s fairytale season of 2015-16 may still seem far-fetched with half a season to play, under the Portuguese manager Nuno Espírito Santo, fans are getting giddy.
“A couple of weeks ago I thought: ‘This is probably as good as it gets,’” says Matt Davies, the host of the Forest Focus podcast. “Then we kept winning and you wonder about Tuesday and think: ‘What if?’ It feels possible, which is crazy.”
Nottingham is a city where sport really matters. Cricket was opened up to paying spectators here thanks to an enterprising landlord. Forest and Notts County – nestled like grumpy bedfellows on opposite banks of the Trent – are two of the oldest clubs in English football. When Victorian grandeur was hollowed out by manufacturing decline, sport filled the gap.
It is little wonder, then, that fans want to enjoy the moment. On match days, pubs around the ground are bursting to the rafters; the local Greek tavern has celebrated every victory with a firework display set off down an alleyway by the restaurant.
“The city just seems to be brighter than it’s ever been,” says Greg Mitchell, a founder of the Forest fan group Forza Garibaldi, named after the Italian revolutionary who is the inspiration behind the club’s red home kit. “But I don’t think it’s reached the pinnacle yet. Imagine fans from all over Europe drinking in these pubs, staying in our hotels – it would be incredible.”
Because even the most battle-hardened fans are now looking at the table and thinking that European football – perhaps even a spot in the Champions League if they finish in the top four – is no longer an unattainable dream. “I never thought we’d be in this position again, never,” says Mitchell, who met his wife during an away loss to Derby County. “Now all I think about is the Champions League anthem, and I think I’d be upset if we finished sixth.”
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Despite the infectious good vibes, some longsuffering fans – who have seen their team drop to the third tier of English football and bumble about in the second in the last quarter of a century – find it harder to believe. A League One playoff final defeat against Yeovil in 2007 still haunts the dreams of David Thomson. “There is a bit of humility, because once you’ve had those lows, you don’t take it for granted,” he says.
Fans credit Forest’s ascent in part to many canny signings made by the club under the former manager Steve Cooper after it won promotion to the Premier League in 2022, and continued under Espírito Santo. The backing of the Greek shipping magnate Evangelos Marinakis, the Olympiakos owner currently suing a Greek football rival over allegations – which he denies – of match-fixing and a high-profile drug trafficking case in Greece, is also seen as key.
As yet, few pundits are willing to talk about Forest as possible title contenders. Espírito Santo says he is not even looking at the table. The Premier League’s data partner Opta has put the team’s chances of winning the English title at a chastening 0%. The fans don’t seem to care. “We are up there on merit, and I don’t care what the pundits say,” says Forest fan Lisa Fox.
For her, the glut of victories this season are bittersweet after losing her dad in 2023. After Forest’s last home game she and her daughter finally found a commemorative brick bearing his name and his phrase, “Don’t come home and say they’ve lost”, at the Trent End of the City Ground.
“We’re riding that crest of a wave and waiting for it to end, but I hope it doesn’t end on Tuesday,” Fox says. “You just think: ‘Come on Forest, let’s not go home and say that they’ve lost.’”
