Why Forest? Why "Red Devil?"

I fell in love twice when I was ten. My parents took me on my first trip to England and I loved it all. I loved being on the boat, making fun of my sisters, who weren't feeling too well, seeing the famous cliffs, driving on what was obviously the wrong side of the road. England just felt... right. It still does. That holiday caused me to become an incredible anglophile. I just love everything about England, the language, the history, the country, the landscapes, even the cars, the football and the food. I can't help myself when it comes to England. I sometimes feel out of place here in Belgium. Coming back from England never feels like coming home. That may sound slightly pathetic to some, but like I said, I can't help it. It's my dad's fault. He shouldn't have taken me there in the first place.

Forest? Also my dad's fault. And believe me, I have frequently cursed him over the last decade and a half. But on that fatefull day in July, 1980, he made a choice for me. We'd rented a cottage in the little town of Templecombe, Somerset. My parents had gone shopping for supplies and had been as infinitely good as to get me the one thing a ten year-old cannot do without, especially in a cottage with a massive garden. A football. On the football were printed the crests of all the clubs which then made out the English top flight. I remember liking the one with the two birds and I guess I may have been very close to becoming, of all things, a Spurs fan, but then my dad drew my attention to a lovely looking crest with a red tree. He said that they were the best club in the whole world, which we were of course, as incredible as that sounds now. The mind of a ten year-old is simple. The best? I'll support them, then. Easy decision.

But I have stuck with Forest since. (And have been stuck with them as well, so it has felt at times.) Through thick and thin. Through good and bad. Through Cpt Psycho and Cpt Plank, so to speak. Forest are as much a part of me as anything. Even if I can't make it to the City Ground very often, it does matter incredibly. Saturday afternoons are spent in front of the pc, listening to the live match report through the World site, when it's working. Forest books, Forest shirts, Forest dvd's. And of course I "am" red in any board or other game that has red available. There's no escape.

Then there is the Red Devil thing. When I first came out with that name on the Forest mailing list I joined some 10 years ago, some people told me off for chosing Man Utd's nickname. However, our Belgian national side are also called the Red Devils. Hence.

I will be back soon with actual Forest stuff. I have a lot on my mind.

Be good.