Hollow Forest Cut To The Chase Too Quickly

Hollow Forest Cut To The Chase Too Quickly

- Chris Dunlavy

MAY 16, 2011. Billy Davies, red-faced and simmering, has just lost to Swansea in a thrilling Championship play-off semi at the Liberty.

After a few terse interviews, the Scot sets off for his summer holidays, vowing to go one better next season.

On that warm night by the White Rock, deflated but optimistic, nobody realised it marked the last time for SEVEN years that Nottingham Forest would finish a season with the same manager who started it.

That dismal trend continued last week with the dismissal of Mark Warburton, a sacking that has enraged supporters driven to weary despair by impatience and ineptitude in the boardroom.

Precipitated

Since Davies departed in a detonation of petulance and persecution, Steve McClaren, Steve Cotterill, Sean O’Driscoll and Alex McLeish have all occupied the City Ground dugout.

‘King’ Billy’s return, in 2013, was supposed to resurrect the glory days. Instead, it precipitated another round of bloodshed. Davies self-destructed again. Stuart Pearce was sacked, swiftly followed by Dougie Freedman and Philippe Montanier.