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The Bristol City v Nottingham Forest Match Day Thread 22


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Close to Sandown Park near Esher Green in Surrey lies the shortest trunk road in Britain. The A3009 is a mere 170 yards long. As delusions of grandeur go this must be the pinnacle as far as main roads are concerned. The rather aptly named Ebenezer Place, meanwhile, is officially recognised as the shortest road in the world located in Wick, Scotland. The A6011 is less well known for any records but at only 2.1 miles long remains one of the shortest A roads in the UK. 

The A6011 was formerly part of the A52, before that road was moved onto a nearby ring road. The road has three western termini. The A6011 runs along Meadow Lane, Nottingham, from the A60 north of Trent Bridge to a roundabout on the A612. There's also a spur along County Road past Notts County's football ground back to the A60. The mainline turns off Meadow Lane and crosses the Trent over Lady Bay Bridge (where parts of Smiley's People were filmed) and passing the City Ground (the two are the closest pair of grounds in England as many reading this will know). A signalled junction with the A6520 joins us to the former route of the A52. We now pass between Lady Bay and West Bridgford, before becoming dual carriageway. There's a signalled junction to access the National Watersports Centre (at Holme Pierrepont) before the road ends on meeting the A52 at a roundabout in Gamston.

A certain Edgar Purnell Hooley was passing a tar works in 1901 when he noticed a barrel of tar had been spilled and, to reduce the mess, someone had dumped gravel on it. A year later he patented the process and the first road to be tarmacked was the A6011 or, back then, called the Radcliffe Road in West Bridgford. Tarmac was not invented by the Scotsman John Macadam.

 5a34adb67ca61_ScreenShot2017-12-16at1_22_36PM.png.1873217455d30701511e2b06436950f1.png

Nottingham has given the world a lot of things such as discoveries that led to the Magnetic Resonance Imaging machine or MRI Scanner invented by the recently and sadly departed Sir Peter Mansfield of the University of Nottingham with Paul Lauterbur from the University of Illinois. When Mansfield presented his ideas at a symposium in 1977, he recalls facing a silent audience. Sir Peter wasn't entirely surprised, since his method could theoretically speed up the process of producing images from an hour to a fraction of a second.

Nottingham also gave us Ibuprofen discovered by Dr. Stewart Adams in 1961; Turning on the taps is a fairly everyday thing, but the technology has its origins in Nottingham. Arnold-born Thomas Hawksley was an engineer for the Nottingham Waterworks Company and developed the first high-pressure water supply at Trent Bridge; Okay, in health terms this shouldn't be in here. But Player's began as a small shop in Beast Market Hill in 1860 and went on to become one of Nottingham’s best-known brands. John Player was the first tobacconist to offer pre-packaged tobacco. Before this, smokers would have to buy it loose by weight; It is pretty hard to imagine a time without traffic lights, but after seeing thousands killed on the roads, in 1866 Nottingham High School pupil John Peake Knight set about trying to solve the problem. His system had a revolving gas-powered lantern with a red and a green light with the first one placed near the House of Commons in London; Lace made by machine has played an important role in the industrial life of Nottingham since the 1760s when net was first made on the stocking frame. By the early 1900's Nottingham was the lace capital of the world with one third of the entire population earning their living in the trade, two thirds of them women. The trade may be a shadow of its former self but lace is woven into the fabric of the city; Yes, the Sally or Salvation Army was founded in the East End of London, but it was the brainchild of Sneinton man William Booth. As well as whipping out the instruments to play Christmas songs, the Salvation Army is also one of the biggest distributors of humanitarian aid in the world; HP Source from 1895; The Video Cassette Recorder from 1963 and more bizarely the Flying Bedstead from 1953 which, remarkably, was a precursor to the Hawker Harrier Jump Jet prematurely retired by the Government and looked liked this..

5a34b6f82de93_ScreenShot2017-12-16at2_02_17PM.png.27cf875bdd01f53bc32950a5149fafa8.png

Arguably far more important than all of those things is Nottingham's 'Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem' an 1189 pub purporting to be the oldest in England, not the UK. Perhaps when we visit the City Ground next year a fan or three can pay the place a visit pre or post match and report back to us all.

AND.. TO FOOTBALL.......

....That other passion for all of us on this forum are a few other firsts for Nottingham. We of course know all about County being the oldest club but Forest hold a few interesting statistics of their own. 

Over the Trent from Nottingham based County, in West Bridgford, Nottingham Forest were the first team to wear shin pads and introduce goal nets and crossbars, and a whistle for the referee most of which was down to one man;

Forest chairman Sam Weller Widdowson, who previously played for the team and indeed cricket for Nottinghamshire, introduced the novel idea of defending. He played a 2-3-5 formation, with the 3 in the midfield known as half backs, being largely defensive, rather than a 1-2-7 which most teams used. Earlier in his career Widdowson was credited with those shin pads, having cut them down from cricket pads and tying them to the outside of his football stockings. Initially ridiculed they soon caught on and are, to this day, regulation. When Widdowson later became a referee he officiated the first ever match that used goal nets. Widdowson is perhaps one of the most underrated and uncelebrated innovators of the game. He played once for England in an international against Scotland in 1880 with England going down to a 9 goal thriller 5-4. 

Born in April 1851, sixth of 10 children, Widdowson was named after Sam Weller from The Pickwick Papers, his father’s favourite Dickens character. He was 14 when Forest were formed in 1865, 15 when he became a regular member of the side and 22 when he was made captain in 1873, promptly introducing a new formation that was to become the default in English football at least until Herbert Chapman came up with the WM system in the 1920s. This involved, according to the Evening Post, “one goalkeeper, two backs, three half-backs and five forwards, with himself as sole leader of the attack. In this line-up the second centre forward dropped back to the centre of the half-back line to act as a purveyor of passes down the middle of the field to the attackers.” A 'purveyor' of passes; what an exquisite use of the word in describing a footballer at work on the field of play.

And Widdowson was to be involved in more novelties: in 1878 the FA used a match between his Forest side and Sheffield’s Norfolk FC to trial for the first time an alternative to the referee’s white flag, which officials used to wave when displeased, and then asked for his thoughts on the experiment. Following his positive feedback, the whistle was formally introduced.

“No man did more than this famous all-rounder to bring careful thought and inventive genius to the game,” wrote the Nottingham Evening Post in 1950. “But then everything Sam Weller Widdowson did in sport had the hallmark of class, and the brilliance of a genius.” Nottingham Forest did not see such genius again perhaps until its most successful manager of all time came along, Brian Clough and I wrote a fair few paragraphs of this dour yet erudite man in a previous Match Day.

Mark Warburton presides over the 2017 Forest team which are yet to draw a match this season. Will Forest fancy their chances at Ashton Gate today? We expect a victory but 'there are no easy games' as we all know which we often repeat to ourselves like a mantra, but it is very true especially in this Championship division.

Enjoy the match today.

 

 

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1 hour ago, havanatopia said:

Close to Sandown Park near Esher Green in Surrey lies the shortest trunk road in Britain. The A3009 is a mere 170 yards long. As delusions of grandeur go this must be the pinnacle as far as main roads are concerned. The rather aptly named Ebenezer Place, meanwhile, is officially recognised as the shortest road in the world located in Wick, Scotland. The A6011 is less well known for any records but at only 2.1 miles long remains one of the shortest A roads in the UK. 

The A6011 was formerly part of the A52, before that road was moved onto a nearby ring road. The road has three western termini. The A6011 runs along Meadow Lane, Nottingham, from the A60 north of Trent Bridge to a roundabout on the A612. There's also a spur along County Road past Notts County's football ground back to the A60. The mainline turns off Meadow Lane and crosses the Trent over Lady Bay Bridge (where parts of Smiley's People were filmed) and passing the City Ground (the two are the closest pair of grounds in England as many reading this will know). A signalled junction with the A6520 joins us to the former route of the A52. We now pass between Lady Bay and West Bridgford, before becoming dual carriageway. There's a signalled junction to access the National Watersports Centre (at Holme Pierrepont) before the road ends on meeting the A52 at a roundabout in Gamston.

A certain Edgar Purnell Hooley was passing a tar works in 1901 when he noticed a barrel of tar had been spilled and, to reduce the mess, someone had dumped gravel on it. A year later he patented the process and the first road to be tarmacked was the A6011 or, back then, called the Radcliffe Road in West Bridgford. Tarmac was not invented by the Scotsman John Macadam.

 5a34adb67ca61_ScreenShot2017-12-16at1_22_36PM.png.1873217455d30701511e2b06436950f1.png

Nottingham has given the world a lot of things such as discoveries that led to the Magnetic Resonance Imaging machine or MRI Scanner invented by the recently and sadly departed Sir Peter Mansfield of the University of Nottingham with Paul Lauterbur from the University of Illinois. When Mansfield presented his ideas at a symposium in 1977, he recalls facing a silent audience. Sir Peter wasn't entirely surprised, since his method could theoretically speed up the process of producing images from an hour to a fraction of a second.

Nottingham also gave us Ibuprofen discovered by Dr. Stewart Adams in 1961; Turning on the taps is a fairly everyday thing, but the technology has its origins in Nottingham. Arnold-born Thomas Hawksley was an engineer for the Nottingham Waterworks Company and developed the first high-pressure water supply at Trent Bridge; Okay, in health terms this shouldn't be in here. But Player's began as a small shop in Beast Market Hill in 1860 and went on to become one of Nottingham’s best-known brands. John Player was the first tobacconist to offer pre-packaged tobacco. Before this, smokers would have to buy it loose by weight; It is pretty hard to imagine a time without traffic lights, but after seeing thousands killed on the roads, in 1866 Nottingham High School pupil John Peake Knight set about trying to solve the problem. His system had a revolving gas-powered lantern with a red and a green light with the first one placed near the House of Commons in London; Lace made by machine has played an important role in the industrial life of Nottingham since the 1760s when net was first made on the stocking frame. By the early 1900's Nottingham was the lace capital of the world with one third of the entire population earning their living in the trade, two thirds of them women. The trade may be a shadow of its former self but lace is woven into the fabric of the city; Yes, the Sally or Salvation Army was founded in the East End of London, but it was the brainchild of Sneinton man William Booth. As well as whipping out the instruments to play Christmas songs, the Salvation Army is also one of the biggest distributors of humanitarian aid in the world; HP Source from 1895; The Video Cassette Recorder from 1963 and more bizarely the Flying Bedstead from 1953 which, remarkably, was a precursor to the Hawker Harrier Jump Jet prematurely retired by the Government and looked liked this..

5a34b6f82de93_ScreenShot2017-12-16at2_02_17PM.png.27cf875bdd01f53bc32950a5149fafa8.png

Arguably far more important than all of those things is Nottingham's 'Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem' an 1189 pub purporting to be the oldest in England, not the UK. Perhaps when we visit the City Ground next year a fan or three can pay the place a visit pre or post match and report back to us all.

AND.. TO FOOTBALL.......

....That other passion for all of us on this forum are a few other firsts for Nottingham. We of course know all about County being the oldest club but Forest hold a few interesting statistics of their own. 

Over the Trent from Nottingham based County, in West Bridgford, Nottingham Forest were the first team to wear shin pads and introduce goal nets and crossbars, and a whistle for the referee most of which was down to one man;

Forest chairman Sam Weller Widdowson, who previously played for the team and indeed cricket for Nottinghamshire, introduced the novel idea of defending. He played a 2-3-5 formation, with the 3 in the midfield known as half backs, being largely defensive, rather than a 1-2-7 which most teams used. Earlier in his career Widdowson was credited with those shin pads, having cut them down from cricket pads and tying them to the outside of his football stockings. Initially ridiculed they soon caught on and are, to this day, regulation. When Widdowson later became a referee he officiated the first ever match that used goal nets. Widdowson is perhaps one of the most underrated and uncelebrated innovators of the game. He played once for England in an international against Scotland in 1880 with England going down to a 9 goal thriller 5-4. 

Born in April 1851, sixth of 10 children, Widdowson was named after Sam Weller from The Pickwick Papers, his father’s favourite Dickens character. He was 14 when Forest were formed in 1865, 15 when he became a regular member of the side and 22 when he was made captain in 1873, promptly introducing a new formation that was to become the default in English football at least until Herbert Chapman came up with the WM system in the 1920s. This involved, according to the Evening Post, “one goalkeeper, two backs, three half-backs and five forwards, with himself as sole leader of the attack. In this line-up the second centre forward dropped back to the centre of the half-back line to act as a purveyor of passes down the middle of the field to the attackers.” A 'purveyor' of passes; what an exquisite use of the word in describing a footballer at work on the field of play.

And Widdowson was to be involved in more novelties: in 1878 the FA used a match between his Forest side and Sheffield’s Norfolk FC to trial for the first time an alternative to the referee’s white flag, which officials used to wave when displeased, and then asked for his thoughts on the experiment. Following his positive feedback, the whistle was formally introduced.

“No man did more than this famous all-rounder to bring careful thought and inventive genius to the game,” wrote the Nottingham Evening Post in 1950. “But then everything Sam Weller Widdowson did in sport had the hallmark of class, and the brilliance of a genius.” Nottingham Forest did not see such genius again perhaps until its most successful manager of all time came along, Brian Clough and I wrote a fair few paragraphs of this dour yet erudite man in a previous Match Day.

Mark Warburton presides over the 2017 Forest team which are yet to draw a match this season. Will Forest fancy their chances at Ashton Gate today? We expect a victory but 'there are no easy games' as we all know which we often repeat to ourselves like a mantra, but it is very true especially in this Championship division.

Enjoy the match today.

 

 

Great stuff H.

You didn't want to take the M 25.

The Trip , as locals call it , merits a visit . It is carved into the hill side of Nottingham castle and has many little rooms and steps, so not for less abled punters or those that are drunk.

It is reputedly haunted so don't ask for spirits at the bar.

Forest were à nothing sort club before Clough and went onto be a nothing sort of a club after him.

Like any team in this division they are a threat but we should have enough to get the three points .

Living the dream .

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23 minutes ago, Major Isewater said:

Great stuff H.

You didn't want to take the M 25.

The Trip , as locals call it , merits a visit . It is carved into the hill side of Nottingham castle and has many little rooms and steps, so not for less abled punters or those that are drunk.

It is reputedly haunted so don't ask for spirits at the bar.

Forest were à nothing sort club before Clough and went onto be a nothing sort of a club after him.

Like any team in this division they are a threat but we should have enough to get the three points .

Living the dream .

The Trip was "my local" when I worked for Gala. Their HQ is in Castle Boulevard just across the road and a small park from it and I used to spend a lot of time working in that building. One of my favourite away memories was walking around to the City Ground and being on the terraces with (I believe) 167 other CIty fans as we beat them 2-1 in the JPT game, Showumni scoring the winner.

I think that @havanatopia has covered previously the tale that Nottingham men are greatly outnumbered by women, a story that I think started with the Lace trade and has persisted through the local university having the most popular HR Degree course in the country. I don't know if the belief matches the actuality though. 

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1 hour ago, dave36 said:

History to repeat itself, expect a really good game, but fully aware we will have an extra problem on the field today - Mr I hate Bristol city LINNINGTON!

If we had a decent ref today would have been confident of a narrow win, as it is fear the decisions will go the way of Forest with Linington ref'ing. That combined with Football Focus doing a little feature on us makes me feel we are being set-up for a fall, 1-2 Forest my predication... lets hope I'm wrong!

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1 hour ago, sh1t_ref_again said:

Just hoping the boys dont have the Man u game on their minds today and are helf hearted in to a challange with fear of injury or sending off. 

Sure LJ will have them fired up and hopefully under no doubts a poor performance means they will not be playing wednesday

 

Since the draw I've been worried that the Man U game would affect us, but that doesn't seem to have been the case.

Hopefully LJ is making the players aware that keeping focussed on the league gives them the chance of playing Man U twice again next season, along with Man City, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal etc.etc.

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1 hour ago, downendcity said:

Since the draw I've been worried that the Man U game would affect us, but that doesn't seem to have been the case.

Hopefully LJ is making the players aware that keeping focussed on the league gives them the chance of playing Man U twice again next season, along with Man City, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal etc.etc.

Spoke with several players on Tuesday at Charlton Farm, I couldn’t believe the focus on Forest...which speaks volumes to me.

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3 hours ago, Port Said Red said:

 

I think that @havanatopia has covered previously the tale that Nottingham men are greatly outnumbered by women, a story that I think started with the Lace trade and has persisted through the local university having the most popular HR Degree course in the country. I don't know if the belief matches the actuality though. 

It certainly doesn't match reality. When I moved to the East Midlands in 1990, it was definitely something in the back of my mind. No internet back then to check reality. Since then all my trips into the city have resulted in disappointment. Just like the football.

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11 minutes ago, finbarr_in_z said:

It certainly doesn't match reality. When I moved to the East Midlands in 1990, it was definitely something in the back of my mind. No internet back then to check reality. Since then all my trips into the city have resulted in disappointment. Just like the football.

I can't imagine why ? What with your winning smile and all .

IMG_0142.JPG

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14 minutes ago, finbarr_in_z said:

It certainly doesn't match reality. When I moved to the East Midlands in 1990, it was definitely something in the back of my mind. No internet back then to check reality. Since then all my trips into the city have resulted in disappointment. Just like the football.

If Port Said Red is right i was probably impartial enough not to have used terms such as 'easy on the eye'. I was not painting a Turner in other words. 

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2 hours ago, WestMidsRed said:

Couldn’t get myself to Bristol today unfortunately despite having a ticket so I’m really gutted. We’ve had another dumping of snow up here in Stoke, I live in the rural back lanes and everywhere is like an outdoor skating rink. 

So I’ll be cheering the lads on with the radio instead. UTC

That's a shame and surprised to hear it's so snowy up the road - just drizzly here in Coventry.

I'm feeling more confident than usual about this one, going for 2-0 to City. COYR!

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12 minutes ago, CovCyder said:

That's a shame and surprised to hear it's so snowy up the road - just drizzly here in Coventry.

I'm feeling more confident than usual about this one, going for 2-0 to City. COYR!

Me too, we had a dumping but nothing's been gritted either so there was plenty of black ice, but it's slushed up to hell now. I'm pretty sure it's just around Stoke though. And i'm also feeling confident about this one, i'll hedge for a 3-1 win.

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