| Reporter:
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Stanno |
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| A win that almost certainly guarantees Forest another season in the First Division, as the Reds confounded all the experts to leave St. Andrews with three points.
Birmingham took the game to Forest right from the start, but the Reds were looking deadly on the counter and should have gone ahead after 15 minutes. A delightfully timed pass from Harewood saw Rogers surge through from midfield and his pace took him well clear of any Blues defender and into a one on one with the keeper. Tank drew the keeper out and fired his shot across the face of the goal only to see it go narrowly wide. |
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| Forest went ahead after 41 minutes, courtesy of an own goal from City defender Darren Purse after Forest had been awarded a free kick. The ball was curled in by Rogers and via the head of Purse ended up in the back of the net. |
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| Chances were scarce in the second half, although the entertainment value was high as Birmingham piled on the pressure and Forest defended like Trojans. |
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| In the end Forest had Dave Beasant to thank after he pulled off a quite stupendous save that was reminiscent of the legedary Gordon Banks's save from Pele to deny Gary Rowett a late equaliser. Rowett towered over the Resd defence and directed a powerful downward header towards the Forest goal. Everyone in the Ground thought it was a goal but somehow Beasant managed to get down to the ball and scoop it up onto the bar and away to safety - quite incredible. |
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| All in all, this was probably the best away performance by Forest this season and amazingly, they could quite easily remain unbeaten until the end of the season, only the away tie at Fulham would appear to present them with any problem. Lets hope that this can be achieved and that we can all look forward to next season with renewed hope. |
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| Forest Man-of-the-Match:
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Dave Beasant |
