1978/79: Forest join élite club
Wednesday 30 May 1979
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John Robertson (Nottingham Forest FC) (©Getty Images)
Nottingham Forest FC 1-0 Malmö FF
(Francis 45)
Olympiastadion, Munich
Real Madrid CF did it in 1955/56. Internazionale FC repeated the feat eight years later. Now Nottingham Forest FC were about to join that select band by lifting the European Champion Clubs' Cup at the first time of asking.
Perfect start
Brian Clough's team got off to the perfect start. They beat the holders, Liverpool FC, whose domestic primacy they had usurped the previous season following promotion to the English first division. Two-nil the aggregate score. Forest then put seven goals past AEK Athens before dismissing Grasshopper-Club in the last eight. While the Swiss had the goals of Claudio Sulser, architect of Madrid's second-round exit, Clough could count on English international custodian, Peter Shilton, nemesis of Liverpool.
Bowyer decider
So Forest were through to the last four where they faced arguably their toughest test. 1. FC Köln had shown their mettle by knocking out Rangers FC, the only quarter-finalist to have won a major European honour. Now they wanted to end a sequence of four European semi-final defeats. That looked the likely outcome after a 3-3 first-leg draw at the City Ground, but that was reckoning without Forest's knack of upsetting the odds. How the latter must have raged after Ian Bowyer nicked a 1-0 victory in Cologne.
Francis glory
The final pitted Clough against another English coach in Malmö FF's Bob Houghton, who had masterminded wins against AS Monaco FC, FC Dynamo Kyiv, TS Wisla Kraków and FK Austria Wien. But Swedish hopes of a fourth clean sheet in five games were spoiled by Trevor Francis's diving header at Munich's Olympiastadion.
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