It has been a frustrating and laborious wait for those supporters who saw a managerial switch as the only viable escape route this season.
In many respects it is almost as if the season began in August and finished abruptly in early October. Only now the inevitable has caught up can the challenge recommence.
The industrious opening and the scattering of improved players proved to be something of a red herring.
Early season naivety made way for ‘judge us after ten games’, and ten games became the waking nightmare of arriving every Saturday without enthusiasm or expectation.
By the middle of October I was fairly certain that Calderwood could be no more than a game or two from the axe. But it was this misguided certainty that spoiled any chances of enjoying the subsequent months.
As many football fans will admit, once you are entirely sure of your belief that a manager must be sacrificed it is almost impossible to enjoy football.
The excuses grow wearisome and the tactics unbearable; every defeat is consoled by fantasies of a morning announcement. Every victory is soured by the knowledge that your foe has secured his territory for another week.
People on both sides of the fence have the club’s interests at heart, but by this point the fence is something more like the Berlin Wall.
I vividly remember reading scattered remarks that Calderwood would one day be a top Premiership manager and must be retained. On each occasion I almost ate my fist to prevent it from going through the monitor.
Who knows, one day I may eat my words too. For now I am simply relieved that an era of mediocrity and frustration has come to an end.
Calderwood pandered to the airs and graces of the club’s supporters, and he spoke well of long term ambitions. As many of his militant supporters argued, he may well have been a nice man too.
Sadly nobody is nice enough to be worth a return to the dismal nether regions of the football league.
The case of who should replace him is tough. It is at these times that statistics become freely malleable and wild assumptions of character are made.
Modest figures who have barely made conversation in the past are sworn in as ‘disciplinarians’, and everybody other than Sam Allardyce ‘likes to have football played the right way’.
Today’s pulse-raising triumph at Carrow Road brought three vital points and evidence of a team’s bonding to cross choppy waters. John Pemberton, however, will not have chance to enter the public’s imagination as a new appointment is expected within days.
Ex-Derby boss Billy Davies remains the bookmakers’ beau. Stalwart Curbishley and battleaxe Dowie have been mentioned in passing, while fans have openly lusted over Martinez at Swansea and Johnson at Bristol.
And of course, like a puppy with a slipper Forest fans will never let go of Stuart Pearce or Nigel Clough. Fiery Roy Keane, ‘OBE’ with the rage but not the charisma, clings loosely to the same club.
One man who perhaps satisfies the lesser extremities of both the ‘legend’ and the ‘success story’ arguments is Brian Laws. Not too many would grumble at his appointment at the City Ground.
Whoever it is, they will have to be rather good.
The candidate will need thick skin, charm, ambition and a lot of common sense. He will be experienced, have signings in mind before his arrival and be prepared to accept a competitive but frugal salary.
Brian Clough circa 1975 would do nicely.
