...the Moose is on fire.
The first weekend of the football season is a fairly special time.
In just a matter of months tempers will be flaring and fans across country will be crawling with a familiar cynicism and wondering – again - why it is they actually watch football.
A fortunate but limited few will, of course, have no complaints whatsoever.
The great beauty of the opening weekend is that nobody is quite sure which side they will be signing for.
For all of the huffing and puffing in dour friendlies, and the juggernaut of transfer speculation (including subsequent disappointment), every football fan experiences the same curious optimism shortly before the big kick off.
Even the flask-carrying doomsayers who have spent the entire summer predicting the club’s imminent implosion will be childishly excited, not that they’ll talk about it too loudly.
But whilst it is quite delightful to absorb this unabridged enthusiasm, there is surely nothing better than still feeling it 90 minutes later?
In Forest’s case there is something genuinely remarkable happening. After three seasons of full-throttle fury, and five of agonising disappointment, the storm clouds have finally receded.
All of a sudden, it’s really quite nice being a Forest fan.
What a novelty it was to reach the 30 minute mark and not feel humiliated, broken and veritably enraged by a 0-0 scoreline.
How pleasant to bask in the sunshine with very limited ambitions and a reasonable certainty that relegation isn’t going to be a problem.
It is a very desirable arrangement; quite detached from the ‘do or die’ manacles of the third tier.
Throughout our third division escapades, which all of us can only hope to later review as an embarrassing anomaly, we collectively felt that every dropped point was a suckerpunch.
The football was dismal, promotion was the only acceptable outcome, and it really seemed quite offensive to not win every single game.
Now we are faced with the prospect of a season that some of us might actually enjoy.
There are real grounds with real crowds to visit again, and although we are going to be playing at underdog more than we have become accustomed to it is clear that we can hold our own.
Today was by no means a showpiece spectacular for the neutrals, but the playful exuberance rippling about the City Ground was enough to make it a thoroughly enjoyable affair.
We bossed possession, we defended tightly and as though we hadn’t stepped up a division at all, and the two new faces on show did enough to whet appetites aplenty.
Factor Andy Cole, Paul Anderson, Joe Garner and Nathan Tyson into equation and it’s almost enough to make a man say something along the lines of “you never know…”
I’ve been a Forest fan for too long to expect this delirium to last much longer.
But for the time being I am only too happy to sit back and enjoy the vastly underrated process of ‘never knowing’…
