O’NEILL WALKING BACK TO FOREST TRAIL
COACH HAS HIS EYES ON PROMOTION
“You have to adjust, you have to adapt — I believe I have done”
FIVE large colour photographs of Nottingham Forest legends adorn the main entrance at the City Ground. Left to right, they read: Tony Woodcock, John Robertson, Martin O’Neill, Ian Bowyer and Viv Anderson.
All were cornerstones of the famous Forest team under Brian Clough which won promotion, the English League, two European Cups, the UEFA Super Cup and the League Cup.
What is most curious about the quintet is that they were on the staff when Clough arrived in January 1975 at a provincial club in mid-table of the second tier of English football.
A little before 2.0pm yesterday, O’Neill paused briefly by the photos as he made his way to his unveiling as Forest’s 13th manager inside seven and a half years.
He was back on familiar ground, at a club he played 371 games for, the last of which, he reminded everyone, was a win over Arsenal, where he scored twice against his great friend Pat Jennings before being sold by Clough to Norwich.
Inevitably, Clough was the fall guy for many of O’Neill’s stories as he joshed with journalists on the Midlands beat, some of whom he knew from his time at nearby Leicester City and Aston Villa.
Gone was the haunted, at times crabby, figure of the final months of Irish reign where he seemed bewildered by his team’s shortcomings and irritated at the level of questioning of his methods.
Approaching 67, O’Neill looked 10 years younger, trim and tidy in a dapper charcoal suit, matching tie and white shirt, clearly energised by the challenge of leading his old club back to the Premier League
Here, next door to Trent Bridge cricket ground, O’Neill faced donkey drop bowling from affable hacks, which he swatted easily to the boundaries.
Why is he drawn back to football? What keeps driving him on? What does he think of the values of Forest? (He loves the name). It was easy-peasy stuff.
Beforehand, the four Irish journalists present were politely asked not to hijack the conference but to wait their turn. When it came, O’Neill wasn’t in the mood for in-depth reflections on his final months with Ireland and where it all turned sour with the FAI. He played a straight bat.
It helped that at every turn there was Clough(right). Old Big ‘Ed, who put blooms on the branches of Forest 40 years ago.
There were countless Clough yarns, some of which O’Neill gleefully admitted he invented.
Like the time when he asked Clough why he was in the second team, to be told only ‘because there wasn’t a third team.’ Or the one at half-time in a match when he was playing so badly that Clough said he wanted to replace him with the linesman. Both stories were made up, he grinned.
The tale about O’Neill applying for the Bradford City job in 1987, he insisted, was true.
‘The vice-chairman of Bradford asked me to get a recommendation from Brian Clough. “Oh gosh,” I thought.
‘I told Brian I had a chance of going to Bradford and he said, “I tell you what, I will give you the recommendation of all time, don’t you worry about that — but you are not getting my job”.
‘He did send a recommendation — and I didn’t get the job. So, it was not that good a recommendation, was it?’ he laughed. Others laughed, too. The Forest job, he revealed, was dangled in front of him more than once. But for 20 years, the club has laboured outside the Premier League and O’Neill, while he didn’t have to say it, was not ideally suited to dropping down a division.
Now, not so much. At 66, there are fewer top division clubs seeking his services while the Forest job may not have come around again.
Following his abrupt departure as Ireland manager two months ago, O’Neill has been presented with the means, motive and opportunity to return to the club where he played his first game as a professional player in November 1971 and may oversee his last one as a manager.
He has signed an 18-month contract, and should he see it out, then ‘that will mean we might have had a chance [of promotion]’.
Unlike the Ireland gig where there were 10 months between his first friendly and the first qualifier, O’Neill will be on the touchline tomorrow for the visit of Bristol City, the first of 19 games to play between now and May 5. Forest are in ninth place in the Championship, four points outside
the play-offs and only two above Blackburn Rovers who are 14th.
It is that tight and O’Neill cannot dabble with 3-5-2 or cap unseen players as he did with Ireland in 2018, which contributed to his downfall.
‘Time is pressing. No one gets any time these days, and the minute you step into a football club, you’re expected to get going immediately.
‘It doesn’t matter whether you know the players or not, and no one cares really, from the outside. You have to go and do it,’ he said.
The vibe around the old East Midlands town is largely positive towards O’Neill and the City Ground will be rocking tomorrow.
The club has placed his trust in a manager who has been out of day to day management for five years and whose reign in Ireland ended in disharmony with players, such as Matt Doherty, publicly criticising his methods.
As he closes in on 950 games as a manager, O’Neill insists he is no dinosaur
‘I have talked to some of the players I’ve dealt with over the years and I think I’ve changed.
‘I’m not the manager I was at Leicester, I’m not the manager I was at Celtic. There were adjustments that had to be made with the younger players at Aston Villa. You have to adjust, you have to adapt — I believe I have done.’
Along every corridor at the City Ground, the feats of Clough will constantly remind O’Neill of the glory days here.
If things don’t work out, they will stalk him, too.