Despite winning the tournament twelve months earlier, Nottingham Forest were the underdogs going into the 1980 European Cup final.
Similarly, they were seriously unfancied in 1979, before navigating a tough path to Munich and becoming champions of Europe against all the betting odds and every expectation.
Their success in ’79, in a manner, defied logic, for all that Forest were the reigning English league champions.
In a decade that saw the competition otherwise dominated by a great Ajax side, and a great Bayern Munich machine, and a formidable Liverpool creation, along came a team made up of players previously considered past their prime or bought for peanuts from the lower divisions.
It was a team that shone alongside the Trent, not the Mersey, or the Rhine, or the Po. And here they were, shaking an entire continent to its core.
It was a victory viewed at the time, and now, as a miracle, the kind that only a truly maverick genius such as Brian Howard Clough could conceive, never mind pull off.
Only here’s the thing, the thing that was factored into the thinking a year later.
The thing that, had our European football tips been around back then would have seen us backing Hamburg, even though the Tricky Trees had impressed once again, beating Ajax and the like on route to another marquee final, this time held at the Bernabeu.
Miracles don’t tend to strike twice, especially not in quick succession.
There was additionally a further cause for concern, that being Forest’s opponents.
Hamburg, the German champions, were sprinkled with internationals who would that summer win the Euros while running their shows was Kevin Keegan, winner of the Ballon d’Or six months earlier.
This was to be Keegan’s farewell outing for Die Rothosen.
Furthermore, Hamburg had carved out a reputation as a ferocious attacking unit. In the second leg of their semi-final, they had pulverised Real Madrid 5-1.
Forest though, the ‘Miracle Men’ held little truck with any of that and famously so.
List of British clubs to retain the European Cup/Champions League:
— The Second Tier (@secondtierpod) April 13, 2022
🏴 Liverpool
🏴 Nottingham Forest pic.twitter.com/vbFwMKPM69
Ahead of their semi against Ajax, the players had been ushered into an Amsterdam brothel and told to send the bill to the club and even here at the Bernabeu, with a squad so depleted by injuries they couldn’t fill their sub’s bench, Hamburg were just another giant to be brought down to size.
Besides, in John Robertson – a player who Brian Clough called his ‘little fat lad’ with great affection – they believed they had the best left winger in the world, while Peter Shilton was without question unrivalled.
It was Robertson who put Forest ahead in the 20th minute, drifting in off his flank to play a one-two before guiding it home with his weaker foot and from that point on it was all Hamburg, constructing attack after attack.
Shilton dived to his left. He dived to his right. He tipped fizzing shots around the post and smothered crosses. He was sublime that evening, as too was Martin O’Neil, working tirelessly, his brain as razor-sharp as his feet were magical.
At the back meanwhile, Larry Lloyd and Kenny Burns were, as ever, the bouncers, and none shall pass.
With the latter shackling Keegan, by fair means but mostly foul, Hamburg resorted to shots from range then, as desperation took hold, speculative crosses. But they had no answers. They’d been brought down to size.
Forest were crowned European champions back-to-back. This team that shone by the Trent. And we will never again see their like.
*Credit for all of the photos in this article belongs to AP Photo*
