The Red Army

Lore & Background

The identity of the Red Army is inseparable from the city of Nottingham itself. The club was born in 1865, long before the modern game took shape, and its early years at the Meadow Bank ground were lived out by the same families whose children and grandchildren still fill the City Ground today. There is a generational continuity in the support that feels almost tribal: grandfathers who stood in the cold on the Trent-side terraces pass the scarves and the songs down to grandchildren, and the red shirt becomes a badge of belonging rather than a mere kit colour.

The 1978–1980 period remains the defining mythic era. Brian Clough's Forest, with their blend of local lads and imported talent, produced a run of honours—two FA Cups, a league title, and two European Cups in successive years—that no English club had achieved before. For the Red Army, those nights at the City Ground and the trips to Brussels and Frankfurt were not just victories; they were proof that a midlands club could stand at the summit of world football. The memory of those campaigns is referenced in conversation, in song, and in the quiet pride of a fan who simply says, 'We were European champions, twice.'

The rivalry with Derby County, the East Midlands Derby, adds a sharp, personal edge to the culture. It is a rivalry of geography, of two cities separated by a few miles of motorway and a river, of working-class pride mirrored against working-class pride. On derby days the City Ground becomes a cauldron; the Red Army's noise is directed with a specificity and intensity that ordinary league matches do not provoke, and the result carries a weight that goes well beyond three points.

In Their Own Story

The fog rolls off the Trent and settles over the City Ground in a pale grey shroud. It's a Tuesday, midweek, and the floodlights are just coming on. You can hear the turnstiles before you see them—the clunk, clunk, clunk of a few hundred fans filtering in from the cold. A woman in a well-worn red scarf, the letters faded to a soft pink at the edges, presses her breath into the air and mutters a half-remembered lyric to the 1979 anthem. Around her, the terraces are filling in that slow, ritual way: scarves raised, drums tuned, the low rumble of a crowd settling into its shape. Somewhere down the row, a kid in a too-big replica shirt is showing his phone to a stranger, pointing at a grainy clip of a European final. The stranger nods, remembers, and the two of them are suddenly in the same year, the same night, the same impossible belief. The ball bounces on the grass. The Red Army inhales as one.

Reader's Guide

The City Ground sits on the banks of the River Trent, and on matchdays you can feel the water in the air even before you see it. The terraces are close to the touchline, and when the Red Army rises, the sound hits you physically—a wall of noise that vibrates in your chest. You see rows of red, not the polished red of a stadium ad but the lived-in red of scarves, beanies, and old shirts that have been washed a hundred times. The drums are constant, a heartbeat under the singing.

The songs are the language. 'Forest, Forest, Forest' is the one everyone knows, but the real depth is in the longer, story-telling chants that reference specific players, specific seasons, specific nights. You hear them before you understand them, and then the meaning locks in and the hair on your arms stands up. On derby days against Derby County, the tone shifts. The same voices, the same songs, but sharper, angrier, more personal. The East Midlands Derby isn't a fixture; it's a settlement of accounts.

The red shirt is non-negotiable. You don't wear it because it's pretty. You wear it because your dad wore it, and his dad before him, and the colour is a thread stitched through every generation of the family. You see it in the away ends of stadiums across England and Europe, a single red figure in a sea of white or blue, and you know exactly who they are and where they're from. That's the Red Army. Not a brand. A bloodline.

Did You Know?

• Nottingham Forest became the first English club to win the European Cup in consecutive seasons, claiming the trophy in both 1979 and 1980.
• The club was founded in 1865, making it one of the oldest football clubs in the world, predating the formation of The Football Association by a decade.
• The East Midlands Derby against Derby County is one of the oldest rivalries in English football, with the two clubs' first competitive meeting dating back to the 1880s.
• Forest's 1978 season saw them win both the First Division title and the FA Cup, a Double that remains a cornerstone of the club's identity.