1977–78 Nottingham Forest F.C. season
season of football team
The 1977–78 season was Nottingham Forest's first year back in the First Division since their relegation in 1972. They had finished third in the Second Division the previous season to earn promotion.
Summary
Forest's credentials at the start of the season did not appear to be especially impressive. Promotion from Division Two in 1976–77 had been achieved only by the skin of their teeth and the squad of players was a mixture of underachievers, journeymen and inexperienced youngsters. Many pundits tipped them to struggle. However, Brian Clough and Peter Taylor had already proved at Derby County that they were capable of blending a winning formula from apparently limited resources and they would now do so again. No player epitomised Forest's success more than Kenny Burns, who arrived for £150,000 in pre-season from Birmingham City where he had acquired something of a 'wild man' reputation. Having spent several years playing as a forward, Burns was converted back to the defensive role where he had begun his career and although it took a few matches for him to settle he ended the season by being voted Footballer of the Year.
Forest confounded the critics from the outset, registering three straight league wins to top the first table of the season and thrashing West Ham United 5–0 in the second round of the League Cup. Although their 100% record ended with a 3–0 defeat at Arsenal, Forest won the next three and ended September second in the table behind Manchester City on goal difference.
The public source identifies “1977–78 Nottingham Forest F.C. season” as season of football team. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Nottingham, Forest and season.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3878895. The first chronological checks are 1977, 1972 and 1976.
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This entry incorporates text from “1977–78 Nottingham Forest F.C. season” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.